The world of professional working film composers is a fairly closed circle. Film directors tend to go back to their favorites, so breaking into that business is tough. This contest helps grow up-and-coming composers in a field where there aren't many opportunities to break through.

I have tremendous respect for film composers.

Female composers are one of the greatest gifts given to the musical world, because of the emotional intimacy many of them are able to export through songs.

Film music has a great history of composers and performers.

The idea really came to us when we realized we had hundreds of silent films in our library that we couldn't air on the network because they had no musical score to accompany them. We also wanted to find a way to reach out to younger audiences, to keep our library relevant to them. This program helps draw in composers in that age range.

Too many composers become involved in intellectual speculation which seems to matter more to them than the sound that comes out of all this speculation.