Biography

Dr Tom Harrison is a composer originally from Moray in Scotland. His music has been used in over 200 different television series including Saturday Night Live, The Today Show, The Voice, NFL Football, WWE: Raw and many others. He holds a PhD in Composition from the Royal College of Music in London.

After graduating with a BMus in Film Scoring summa cum laude from Berklee College of Music, Harrison spent 10 years working in Hollywood on some of television's most successful shows. He began with a series of musical assistant jobs working for composers Deborah Lurie (Footloose, Spiderman 3), W. G. Snuffy Walden (The West Wing, Friday Night Lights), Christopher Tyng (Futurama, Suits) and an internship with Alf Clausen on The Simpsons.

Arguably Harrison's most important breakthrough came when he was hired by composer John M. Keane as the music assistant on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, the #1 television series in the world at the time. He spent 3 years as Keane's protégé, working on music editorial, arranging and orchestration for the programme. The pair also worked on the music for Horns, a feature film starring Daniel Radcliffe. Harrison often credits his years with Keane as the most formative of his career.

Following the close of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation's extraordinary run (the 7th longest in US drama history) and after brief stints working for Mike Regan (Powerpuff Girls, God of War) and Oscar-winner Mychael Danna (Life of Pi), Harrison began his own composing career in earnest. Harrison has produced 10 albums for APM and also owns and operates two production music libraries: Ringside Tracks and ClearBop. Harrison is a huge professional wrestling fan; in addition to several placements with WWE, he composed the custom entrance theme for Ring of Honor tag team Lifeblood. The Lifeblood theme was played during the G1 Supercard at wrestling's most prestigious venue Madison Square Garden. The G1 Supercard is the only wrestling event to be produced at MSG by a promotion other than WWE post-1960. Harrison recently arranged and produced 40 songs for Cocomelon.

In addition to his composing career, Harrison has worked extensively as a songwriter and a musical director. He was the musical director, guitarist and pianist for a production of Green Day's American Idiot: The Musical in North Hollywood, a USA tour with Damian McGinty (Glee) and a tour of China with Nashville-based country singer Jackson Wells. Harrison co-wrote two original songs with McGinty on his #2 Billboard Holiday album This Christmas Time.

Harrison is a former Senior Lecturer in Composition for Screen and Music Theory at the Academy of Contemporary Music and is currently Lecturer in Composition for Screen at BIMM University London part-time. He is an active voting member and judge for the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (EMMYs), a professional member of BAFTA Los Angeles and the former chair of the music judging committee for the ASIFA Hollywood Annie Awards. He holds an MMus in Composition with Distinction from King's College London and is Fellow of the London College of Music (Composition). His book How to Become a Film Composer was published globally by Centerstream and Hal Leonard in 2018.
- IMDb mini biography by: Dr Tom Harrison