Are you sure about that? At least in Europe, Morricone has long been recognized as one of the great.

My impression is that he's very well known here in Europe. Sure, not as much as whoever the year's pop sensation is, but Morricone is one of the few modern composers many people know by name.

His death is now a major headline on news sites from several different countries, too.

In France at least (and in Italia I guess) Morricone is very well known. If you would ask people to cite at least one famous score composer Morricone would probably be cited amongst the first, closely followed by Vladimir Cosma.

Actually it is not Morricone public recognition that we should worry about since it is already quite wide, but the fact that he's almost the only Italian composer to get all the fame, while there is so many of them that deserve better recognition, including Morricone collaborators such as Bruno Nicolai and Allessandroni which is responsible for the infamous whistling in Morricone scores.

I don't agree. Maybe not so much in the US, Morricone is recognized world wide.

We had practically a whole semester on his work in my music undergrad degree for the film composition module.

I suspect it's a cultural and generational thing. These days many Americans can't name the modern composers who score the films they watch.

For the generation who grew up with the Fistful series, they probably know Ennio Morricone is extricably linked to Sergio Leone, much in the same way my generation knows John Williams and George Lucas are linked.

I don't know about you, but he's one of the few composers I knew by name, so he was well-known

In Chile at least he was huge. His concerts there sold out quickly.

He is such a genius he probably opened his sincere mouth with whoever issue official recognition.

He probably never cared for public fame.