Composer Laura Karpman has been presented with the 2023 International Film Music Critics Association Awards for Best Original Score for a Comedy Film, by IFMCA members Jon Broxton and Craig Lysy. Karpman’s win was for her score for American Fiction, a comedy-drama about a fictional novelist who, frustrated by his career, writes an outlandish satire of stereotypical “black” books, only for it to be mistaken for serious literature and published to high sales and critical praise. The film was written and directed by Cord Jefferson based on the novel ‘Erasure’ by Percival Everett, and starred Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Sterling K. Brown.
The other nominees in the Comedy category were Barbie by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, Haunted Mansion by Kris Bowers, In Love and Deep Water by Takatsugu Muramatsu, and Mon Crime [The Crime is Mine] by Philippe Rombi.
Karpman’s score is an outstanding blend of contemporary orchestral scoring and authentic period jazz, much of which is inspired by the work of Theolonious Monk, the namesake of the film’s main character. Karpman collaborated with jazz artist Patrice Rushen, flautist Elena Pinderhughes, and saxophonist John Yoakum on the music, and built the score around several recurring themes, including one for Monk himself, and one for Monk’s family, which are initially never played in sync as a reflection of Monk’s fractured family, and only resolve towards the end of the score. IFMCA member Jon Broxton praised the score for its “authenticity, its musicality, its solo performances, and its dramatic application in the context of the excellent film.”
This is the first IFMCA Award win of Karpman’s career; in addition to Best Comedy score, she was also nominated for Composer of the Year in 2023. Previously she was nominated for Best Original Score for a Television Series for Lovecraft Country in 2021, along with co-composer Raphael Saadiq.
Karpman was born in Los Angeles, California, in March 1959. A singer and composer from childhood, Karpman studied at the Tanglewood Music Center, the Aspen Music School, and the Ecole des Arts Americaines, before graduating magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Michigan, where one of her primary teachers was William Bolcom. She then received both her Doctorate and Master’s Degree in Music Composition at the Juilliard School, where she studied with Milton Babbitt and received mentorship from Nadia Boulanger. While at Juilliard Karpman also played jazz and sang in bars at night.
Karpman first began writing for film towards the end of the 1990s, and first came to attention for her work on the Steven Spielberg-produced sci-fi TV series Taken in 2002. Her work since then has encompassed cinema, television, and video games, spanning multiple styles and genres. Her most popular and acclaimed theatrical works in addition to American Fiction include the action thriller The Tournament in 2009, the romantic comedy Set It Up in 2018, and the super-hero adventure The Marvels in 2023. On the small screen, she has been nominated for seven Emmy Awards – for the sci-fi TV series Odyssey 5 in 2003, for the ‘Jerry Was A Man” episode the sci-fi anthology TV series Masters of Science Fiction in 2008, for the horror TV series Lovecraft Country in in 2022, and for the score and main theme for the Marvel super hero TV series Ms. Marvel in 2023 – and has won one, for the score and main theme for the documentary Why We Hate in 2020.
In addition to her film and television work Karpman is an acclaimed classical and jazz composer, and is heavily involved in film music advocacy and politics. In 2014 she co-founded the Alliance for Women Film Composers along with Lolita Ritmanis and Miriam Cutler, an organization which provides visibility and advocacy for women composers, and then in 2016 she became the first woman elected to the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Board of Governors.
See below for the acceptance speech and video interview conducted by Broxton and Lysy:
Click on the thumbnails for larger photo images:
With special thanks to Jason Kutchma, Anton Smit, Erik Woods, Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum, and Amelia Allen.