This year, the Recording Musicians Association honored composer (and current president of the Alliance of Women Film Composers) Lolita Ritmanis, both for her own career and for her role in helping to lead the fight for greater recognition of women working in this male-dominated field. I was delighted to be asked to introduce Lolita, whose music (including the Emmy-nominated theme for Justice League and scores for the animated Batman and Superman series) I have long admired. As I said: “Lolita is a brilliant composer; a thoughtful and creative collaborator; a warm and giving human being; an admired colleague in a very difficult business, for either men or women. She is everything a young musician should aspire to be. And in her role as leader of a talented but underutilized segment of our musical community, she is making a difference in people’s lives.”
A year ago, in August 2016, a unique and important concert happened in downtown Los Angeles: A 55-piece orchestra and 30-voice choir performed the music of 20 leading film, TV and game composers — all of whom happened to be female. Sponsored by the Alliance for Women Film Composers to call attention to their underrated but wildly talented membership, it was filmed by Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Sara Nesson, who has turned the experience into 
Over the years, I’ve written a number of stories about women composers and why they aren’t hired more often for studio films. Despite the grim statistics, things are changing, partly because of the creation of the Alliance for Women Film Composers, but also due to the Academy’s diversity push (which led to a boost in female members of the music branch this year) and the election of Laura Karpman as the first woman governor representing music on the Academy board. I examine all of these developments in 