Spotlight of Alison Plante

Who are you, where are you based, and what is your role in FCSL?

I'm a media composer, teacher, parent, and activist based in Boston, Massachusetts, and I serve on the board of directors of the FCSL. You can read my full bio here, and hear some examples of my music here.

Tell us about your background.

I grew up in Concord, Massachusetts, birthplace of the American Revolution and of authors such as Henry David Thoreau and Louisa May Alcott, my father an astrophysicist and my mother an entrepreneur, teacher, and local leader. My love for music and for film both really took off beginning when I was 5 years old: that was the year that I saw the movie E.T., which sparked my love for film scores, and also the year my uncle gave me a toy recorder for which I insisted my parents find me lessons, beginning what became several years studying Renaissance and Baroque recorder. I started composing music at about the same time, in part because of reading a children's biography of Mozart and being incensed to learn that he had started composing at age 3 so I had already lost several valuable years! I eventually branched out from recorder to piano, french horn, choir, conducting, fife (in a fife & drum corps), and in college I also played in an Indonesian Gamelan. I moved back to Boston rather than L.A. to start my film scoring career in part because I didn't want to give up the changing seasons, and I spent the first seven years building my scoring experience before starting to teach and then becoming Assistant Chair and then Chair of the Film Scoring Department at Berklee College of Music. Three years ago Berklee Online began development of a new Master of Music in Film Scoring degree at which point I returned to Professor from the Chair role on campus, and took on the Program Director role for the online degree.

What do you do for fun outside of music?

My husband, thirteen year old son and I enjoy many seasonal family activities like apple picking in the fall, and visiting museums and places of natural beauty around New England. I also recently had my bicycle converted to an eBike and I've very much enjoyed zipping around on various jaunts with that, from little trips like commuting to teach at Berklee to longer routes for sight-seeing. And I've never lost my love of science fiction, so I'm usually in the middle of a novel or two.​

What is a motto you live by?

"The difference between getting something done, and not getting something done, is doing it."​

What is a project you are excited about?​

​I've just started scoring a pilot for a docuseries telling the untold stories about Remarkable Women who supported iconic men around the world. I'm excited both about the show's content as well as the hybrid story-telling format and the series' global reach.

What brought you to FCSL and what are you looking forward to doing with us?

As in so many things I learned from my students! I had several current and former students who joined FCSL so I joined the Facebook group and my respect for the organization and its mission grew quickly from there. One of my greatest frustrations as an educator has been watching some of my most promising students - creative geniuses some of them, truly! - head to Hollywood only to have their chances snuffed out through discrimination and abuse. FCSL, being a survivor-led and trauma-informed group, is unique in creating a truly safe space and promoting equitable practices in this field that they and I both love so much and deserve to have equal opportunities in. My background and position in higher-ed uniquely positions me to help connect FCSL to scoring education.