So who would be a good composer for the series? I think John Williams, Trevor Jones, or Ennio Morricone would be good choices, but I'd like to hear your opinions.
Two of my favorite television composers right now are Ramin Djawadi and Bear McCreary. Djawadi is probably most well known for composing the music of Game of Thrones. McCreary seems to have his hands in a bit of everything, but my personal favorite work of his is the opening titles to the tragically cancelled show Constantine. (It's not really SilmFilm-y, but I'm still posting the video because I think it's great.)
Joe Hisaishi I recommend, composer for Princess Mononoke and other notable works. Myself I tend to like Anime (fantasy/drama) music, very effective. Of course, Howard Shore did a wonderful job with the Lord Of The Rings trilogy.
Some examples though of Joe Hisaishi work:
and a wonderful example of a track from Princess Mononoke:
Martin Romberg is a composer who already has done something with the Tolkien universe. I guess he's too unknown, but just listen to this piece about Varda. Beautiful!