One of the most remarkable statistics to emerge from this year’s Emmy nominations is the number of women cited in the music categories: nearly 27 percent (14 of 52 noms) are female, the highest percentage in any Emmy competition to date.
Another first: the category of music composition for a limited or anthology series, movie or special, was dominated by women. They scored three of the five nominated shows: “Ms. Marvel” by Laura Karpman, “Prey” by Sarah Schachner, and “A Small Light” by Ariel Marx.
Schachner is well-known in the video game field (“Assassin’s Creed,” “Call of Duty”) while Marx has been quietly making a name for herself in both TV (“A Friend of the Family”) and in the indie world (“Shiva Baby”). Karpman is the best-known, with one Primetime Emmy (“Why We Hate”) and four News & documentary Emmys (“The Living Edens”).
Eight years ago, just 7.3 percent of the nominees in the music categories were women. While it has taken the business decades to catch up with the reality of scoring – that lots of women are fully capable but not offered the same opportunities as their male counterparts – the current Emmy statistics are being cheered by many.
“We’re thrilled with the representation of women composers, in all categories,” says Alliance for Women Film Composers co-president Heather McIntosh. “They’re exceptional scores. Although there is progress, we still have work to do. But we are definitely thrilled.”
Karpman, one of the founders of the AWFC and a leader in the movement to improve diversity in all industry groups, sees the shift as “a combination of people looking for diverse voices in scoring, and those people getting hired, and then those people being able to book higher level projects.
“In the past, all of this was unavailable to us,” Karpman says. “We were unable to build our careers in the same way that white men were. Every project was a beginning. Now, one thing leapfrogs into another in a way that it didn’t before.”
Marx, whose miniseries “A Small Light” was among the most acclaimed shows of the year, adds: “There is more support and encouragement for women to helm these bigger projects. That’s an indication that studios, creatives and executives are more willing to give women these big jobs.”
The higher numbers may also be a reflection of the changing makeup of the Television Academy, notes AWFC co-president Allyson Newman (who, along with McIntosh and Taura Stinson, is also nominated for a song in “The L Word: Generation Q” this year). “It’s becoming more inclusive and reflective of everyone.”
While the Academy doesn’t release specifics about its music peer group, there are about 550 members. In recent years many of the newer ones (especially in the music supervision group) are women, which may constitute a voting bloc unlike any previously seen.
The series composition and music direction categories remained male bastions. But four women nabbed song nominations, four more music-supervision nods, one was nominated in the documentary category, and two in the main-title theme category. (Just nine years ago, there were no women in any of the composition categories.)
For Holly Amber Church, nominated for her main title theme for “Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities,” it was a double surprise, as she has never before worked in television and she simply submitted a piece based on an animatic of the opening sequence. Del Toro chose it, made some suggestions, and greenlit an orchestral session in Budapest where it was recorded.
Church works mostly on indie movies. “Twenty years ago, I didn’t know many women composers, and now there are so many out there getting bigger projects,” she says.
