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Rachel Portman

Born: 11th December 1960, Haslemere, Surrey, UK

Nationality: English

Rachel Mary Berkeley Portman is a British composer. She was the first female composer to win the Academy Award for Best Original Score (for Emma), and was nominated two further times (for The Cider House Rules and Chocolat). She has composed more than one hundred scores for film, television and theatre, and has collaborated with the BBC on several projects, including an opera based on The Little Prince and a choral symphony called The Water Diviner.

Portman's career in music began with writing music for drama in BBC and Channel 4 films such as Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Mike Leigh's Four Days in July and Jim Henson's Storyteller series.

Her success in her profession derives from "a natural affinity for the particularities of a film's narrative" and "her ability to forge a comprehensive articulation of a film's emotional thesis via her gift for colour and storytelling.

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