When Brenna first unveiled OSV’s Matron Maestras series, I was over the moon. Gender politics and volatile gaming culture aside, there’s no denying that the world of game music production is dominated by men. I don’t have a full database from which to do calculations (vgmdb doesn’t allow advanced artist search with filters on artist gender and artist type, such as composer arranger performer etc). Anecdotally, however, it seems to me that the West has an even harder time of it than Japan. I can easily name a dozen women composers from Japan; I would be hard-pressed to do the same among American and European VGM composers.
In wanting to support this new article series, I felt it best to highlight the contributions of the award-winning Winifred Phillips. This is a woman who is blazing a trail in the industry, and teaching others how to do it at the same time. No, really, she wrote the book on the matter (the first English-language book on the topic I’ve yet seen). This, in my mind, makes her both a scholar and a visionary, as she is able to adapt from formulaic composition to out-of-the-box creativity as needed.
After the jump, I’ll give you some examples to show you what I mean. And you’ll also see a list of recent accolades Ms. Phillips has received, demonstrating that I’m not the only one recognizing her talent.
