Now caretaker of his dad’s work, Sean Ono Lennon seeks to innovate, not merely repeat

By David Bauder

Only recently given stewardship over his late father’s work, Sean Ono Lennon is on a remarkable run.

The only child of John Lennon and Yoko Ono won an Academy Award this year for a short film based on his parents’ 1971 song “Happy Christmas (War is Over”)” and, a few months later, was nominated for his first-ever Grammy, for producing a box set on the album “Mind Games,” originally released in 1973.

“It feels overwhelming and surreal,” said Lennon, who also recently shared a Webby Award with his mother for Ono’s interactive art project “Wish Tree.”

For Lennon, who was 5 when the former Beatle was murdered in 1980, the work is a way to connect with his father. It’s more than a preservation mission: On “Mind Games,” he takes artistic license, pulling apart the recordings of John Lennon’s music to create something entirely new.

Lennon was inspired, in part,