Doreen Ringer-Ross
Vice-President of Film, TV and Visual Media Relations at BMI
Web: BMI.com/About/Entry/Doreen_Ring er_Ross
Contact: Marlene Meraz, MMeraz@ BMI.com
As the VP of Film, Television and Visual Media Relations at BMI, Doreen Ringer-Ross works to provide the company’s composers with opportunities for career advancement. But perhaps most notable about her career are her efforts to help female composers, in particular, find work, develop skill sets and grow as composers.
“I think there is a vast inequity in the [composing] community if you look at how many people score music for film and television and other forms of media, and how many are men and how many are women,” Ringer-Ross says. “It was apparent when I started doing this decades ago. It’s not that women have been discriminated against in the composing industry. Rather, I think women have seen it as a career they shouldn’t even go for, in the way that, years ago, it was always men that were doctors and women were nurses just because that was what was modeled by society––but I think that’s changing.”
Ringer-Ross’ contributions to the women composer movement spurred the formation of the Alliance for Women Film Composers, whose goal is to provide support and mentorship in the industry. In 2013, she organized a women composers’ luncheon to discuss role of women within the composing world.
“I was surprised by how many women ended up gathering and how many were actually actively working in the industry,” Ringer-Ross says. It’s important to facilitate a strong female presence in the composing industry, she says, to encourage the next generation of aspiring women composers to pursue that career.
“I had a working mother who raised me, and she didn’t have a choice; she had to go work, and it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t do that,” she says. “Most of the years I’ve been at BMI, we had a CEO named Frances Preston, who was an incredible woman and always modeled to me that a woman could rise through the ranks. She could run a company brilliantly and still do it with heart.”
