Submitted by ForerunnerAI10 t3_zxjfjx in Music

Not just the old masters, I'm talking about the ones currently alive! John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Steve Jablonsky, Martin O'Donnell, Tom Salta, Mick Gordon, and many others I'm sure you can name.

I never hear of great female composers, much less those who can compare to the masters of the past and present. Can anyone tell me of some, and why they're great?

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Rocknroller658 t1_j20nqvo wrote

My personal opinion is that it’s rude to single out composers for their biology. Let’s keep it about the music, yeah? I would say these next two are part of the greats, not just standing with them:

Hildur Guðnadóttir for the amazing scores on Chernobyl and Joker Mica Levi (non-binary) for Under the Skin and Jackie

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BunkytheClown t1_j20nvus wrote

So the "greats" are all film composers?

Weird, but even if you're limiting it that way, how about Hildur Guðnadóttir?

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PossibilitySuperb465 t1_j21kqmm wrote

Yoko Kanno!

Also, I always loved Shirley Walker on Batman The Animated Series.

Punchy, appropriate, custom composed to the beats of each scene, surprisingly varied. Very talented.

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expatbassist t1_j21tz9m wrote

Plenty of phenomenal female composers in the classical music world. Since you've listed a bunch of film composers, someone like Caroline Shaw or Libby Larsen might be up your street.

The idea of the "Greats" is a bit of an interesting concept anyway; speaking as a classical musician, the idea of the Canon that I grew up with was actually really only constructed in the early 20th century within academia as a way of presenting a narrative structure of music history that really centered Germanic music. A lot of who we think of as the "Greats" of a particular era often were not seen that way during their time at all; Bach was of course famously forgotten until Mendelssohn found his manuscripts in Leipzig and began a revival of his music. Mendelssohn himself was considered world class during his lifetime, but when Wagner wrote his treatise attacking Jews in Music (and specifically named Mendelssohn for having Jewish ancestry), Mendelssohn was removed from being thought of as one of the "Greats."

Anyway, I say all that because there were a ton of successful, popular women composers who were considered first rate in their time that were purposely omitted when the Canon was being constructed. Florence Price, Ethyl Smyth, Amy Beach, and Rebecca Clarke were all very highly regarded in the late Romantic Era; Price has been having a pretty big resurgence the last few years, actually.

But yeah, sorry for the long post. Check out Shaw, Larsen, and Jennifer Higdon. Sofia Gubaidalina and Kaijia Saariaho if youre up for something a bit crunchier. But for real, there are so many out there that we in the classical music world are finally starting to try and recognize.

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