Pinar Toprak
Turkish-American composer (b. 1980)
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Pinar Toprak (Turkish: Pınar Toprak; born 18 October 1980) is a Turkish-American composer, conductor, and musician, who specializes in creating thematic film and television scores.[1] She is a two-time Grammy Award and a Primetime Emmy Award nominee.
Pinar Toprak | |
|---|---|
| Born | 18 October 1980 Istanbul, Turkey |
| Alma mater | Istanbul University State Conservatory Berklee College of Music |
| Musical career | |
| Genres | Film and television scores, jazz, rock, electronic, new-age |
| Occupation | Composer |
| Instruments | Piano, keyboards, synthesizer, guitar, violin |
| Years active | 2000–present |
| Website | pinartoprak |
Early life and education
Toprak was born and grew up in Istanbul, Turkey. Her father was an accountant, who supported Toprak's interest in music and movies, particularly westerns and Superman. Toprak has said she was always drawn to superheroes and comic books growing up.[2] She memorized the dialogue from the 1978 film starring Christopher Reeve, and dubbed it to Turkish.[3][4]
Toprak enrolled in the Istanbul State Conservatory, the oldest conservatory in Turkey. During her studies there, she focused on composition and multi-instrumentalism.[1] She began as a violinist and later switched to guitar.[3]
She finished high school at 16, and after her 17th birthday she moved to the United States. She lived with her brother in Wisconsin where she completed a short ESL program before enrolling at Berklee. During that time she found work as a jazz guitarist and pianist."[3]
She received her Bachelor of Music in Film Scoring from Berklee in 2000 when she was 19 years old.[5][6][7] Following her move to Los Angeles, she received a Master's in Classical Composition from the California State University, Northridge in 2002.[6] It was at CSUN where she was recommended for an internship at Paramount Pictures at the age of 20.[6]
Career
At Paramount she attended scoring sessions[3] and worked for Hans Zimmer's production company, Media Ventures International (now Remote Control).[8] She also trained in programming sample instruments.[6] She left Zimmer's company after a year to work as assistant to composer William Ross.[6]
In 2006 she composed the score for the video game Ninety-Nine Nights,[8] and then for Behind Enemy Lines 2. From that time onward, she worked on more than forty feature films and several video game and television projects. She wrote the fanfare for Skydance Media from 2010 to 2022.[5]
Her score for the romantic comedy The Lightkeepers (2009) won the 2010 International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) Award for Best Comedy Score[8] and made it to the 2011 Academy Award Shortlist for Best Original Score.[8] She composed the score for the documentary The Wind Gods (2011), for which she received a second IFMCA award for Best Documentary Score in 2011. In 2017 she was hired by director Dean Devlin to compose the score for Geostorm but left after production companies Warner Bros. and Skydance Media hired a new director for the film's reshoots; she was later replaced by Lorne Balfe. The same year, composer Danny Elfman hired Toprak to write additional music for the 2017 DC film Justice League (Dir. Zack Snyder).[3]
Toprak auditioned and pitched a main theme for the Marvel Studios film Captain Marvel, making her the first woman to ever score a major superhero film, and the first to compose for a film that made more than $1 billion.[5]
In 2019 she received a nomination for the World Soundtrack Awards.[9][10]
Toprak's other prominent works include the films The Lost City, Slumberland, Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie and Lonely Planet, and the television series Krypton, Stargirl, McMillions (for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Original Music Composition for a Documentary Series or Special) and Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft.[11] She is the first Turkish composer to be nominated for an Emmy.[12] Her work on the 2018 film The Tides of Fate earned her the 2019 ASCAP Shirley Walker Award, and also, her third IFMCA Award for Best Original Score for a Documentary Film in 2019.[1]
In 2022, Amazon hired Toprak to compose and conduct a new theme for its Thursday Night Football telecasts, marking the first time a female composer wrote an original theme for the National Football League. Toprak recorded it at the Ocean Way studio in Nashville with an 70-piece orchestra.[13] The new theme was met with wide praise.[14][15][13]
Toprak was nominated twice for a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media for scoring the video game Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (2023).
Toprak scored the orchestral parts of Luminous The Symphony of Us[16], a fireworks-based nighttime spectacular at EPCOT at Walt Disney World Resort that debuted in 2023.
Personal life
Discography
| † | Denotes titles that have not yet been released |
Film
Television
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Loch Ness Terror | Television film |
| Ogre | ||
| Ba'al | ||
| 2009 | Wyvern | |
| 2010 | Mongolian Death Worm | |
| Medium Raw: Night of the Wolf | ||
| 2015 | Clan of the Cave Bear | |
| 2016 | Falling Water | 4 episodes |
| 2018–19 | Krypton | 20 episodes |
| 2020–22 | Stargirl | 39 episodes[21] |
| 2020 | McMillions | 6 episodes |
| 2024–25 | Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft | with Gerrit Wunder 16 episodes |
| 2025 | Bad Thoughts | 6 episodes |
Documentary works
| Year | Title | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Pregnant in America | Steve Buonaugurio | |
| 2013 | The Wind Gods | Fritz Mitchell | |
| 2015 | In Utero | Kathleen Man Gyllenhaal | |
| 2018 | The Tides of Fate | Fritz Mitchell |
Video games
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Ninety-Nine Nights | with Takayuki Nakamura |
| 2017 | Fortnite | Additional music |
| 2023 | Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora |
Other work
- Christina Aguilera: The Xperience Las Vegas Residency (2019) (residency intro)[22][23]
- Skydance Media fanfare (2010–22)
- "Learning to Fly", single by Christina Aguilera (2023; producer)
- Prime Video Sports theme (2022–present)[24]
- Luminous The Symphony of Us, music from the EPCOT nighttime spectacular at Walt Disney World Resort (2023)
Awards and nominations
| Award | Year | Category | Work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASCAP Award | 2019 | Shirley Walker Award | The Tides of Fate | Won | [10] |
| International Film Music Critics Association Awards | 2010 | Best Original Score for a Comedy Film | The Lightkeepers | Won | [25] |
| 2011 | Best Original Score for a Documentary Film | The Wind Gods | Won | ||
| 2019 | Best Original Score for a Documentary Film | The Tides of Fate | Won | ||
| Grammy Awards | 2025 | Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media | Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora | Nominated | [26] |
| 2026 | Nominated | [26] | |||
| Primetime Emmy Awards | 2020 | Outstanding Music Composition for a Documentary Series or Special | McMillions ("Episode 1") | Nominated | [27][12] |
| World Soundtrack Awards | 2019 | Public Choice Award | Captain Marvel | Nominated |
