Intrada Soundtrack Forum

To me, if anyone is Williams' successor, it is James Horner. Like Williams, Horner is helping to keep alive the "old school" classical aesthetic that Williams has championed. Horner and Williams have also worked with many of the same people (Spielberg, Lucas, Oliver Stone, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Ron Howard) and Horner has carved his reputation in many of the same genres Williams has.

Both are masters of how to use an orchestra -- they rely little (if at all) on orchestrators, resourcefully exploit the possibilities of timbral "hue" and deploy instruments with remarkable contrapuntal intricacy (rare skills these days).

I'm not necessarily making a case for Horner being on the same level as Williams, but there's no question that James Horner is the most similar to John Williams among younger composers.