Biography
Rachel Portman is a British composer. She was born on 11 December 1960 in Haslemere, Surrey. She studied music at Worcester College, Oxford, and began her career composing for BBC and Channel 4 dramas, including Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Mike Leigh's Four Days in July and Jim Henson's The Storyteller series.
Portman has written scores for more than one hundred films, television productions and theatre works. Her film credits include Life Is Sweet (1991), Ratcatcher (1999), Chocolat (2000), The Duchess (2008), Never Let Me Go (2010) and One Day (2011). She was the first female composer to win the Academy Award for Best Original Score, for Emma (1996), and received further Academy Award nominations for The Cider House Rules (1999) and Chocolat. She was appointed OBE in 2010.
