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Pinar Toprak (born 18 October 1980) is a Turkish-born American composer, conductor, and musician, who specializes in creating thematic scores.

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. She memorized the dialogue from the 1978 film starring Christopher Reeve, and dubbed it to Turkish.

Toprak enrolled in the Istanbul State Conservatory, the oldest conservatory in Turkey. During her studies there, she focused on composition and multi-instrumentalism. She began as a violinist and later switched to guitar."

She finished high school at 16, and, after her 17th birthday, 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."

She received her Bachelor of Music in Film Scoring from Berklee in 2000 when she was 19 years old. Following her move to Los Angeles, she received a Master's in Classical Composition from the California State University, Northridge in 2002. It was at CSUN where she was recommended for an internship at Paramount Pictures at the age of 20.

Career

At Paramount, she attended scoring sessions and worked for Hans Zimmer's production company, Media Ventures International (now Remote Control). She also trained in programming sample instruments. She left Zimmer's company after a year to work as assistant to composer William Ross.

In 2006, she composed the score for the video game Ninety-Nine Nights, 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 worked on the fanfare of Skydance Media from 2010 to 2022.

Among her work was the score for the romantic comedy The Lightkeepers (2009), which won the 2010 International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) Award for Best Comedy Score. Toprak's score for The Lightkeepers made it to the 2011 Academy Award Shortlist for Best Original Score. She composed the music to 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 was laid off after production companies Warner Bros. and Skydance Media hired a new director for the movie's reshoots. The same year, composer Danny Elfman hired Toprak to write additional scores for the 2017 DC superhero movie, Justice League (Dir. Zack Snyder).

Toprak auditioned and pitched a main theme for the film Captain Marvel, which became a hit. She is the first woman to ever score a major superhero movie, and the first to compose for a film that made more than $1 billion.

In 2019, she received a nomination for the World Soundtrack Awards.

Toprak's other works include the score for the 2018–2019 series, Krypton, prequel to the Superman series; DC's television series, Stargirl; and the HBO limited series, McMillions (2020), for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Original Music Composition for a Documentary Series or Special. She is the first Turkish composer to be nominated for an Emmy. Her work on the 2018 movie 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.

In 2022, Amazon picked Toprak to compose and conduct a new theme for its Thursday Night Football telecasts, marking the first time a woman 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. The new theme was met with wide praise.

Personal life

In 2008, Toprak married Thanos Kazakos, a music composer and sound design major from Greece. They had met at Berklee, and had a daughter. They divorced in 2013.

She currently resides in Los Angeles.

Discography

Film

Television

Video games

Other work

• Christina Aguilera: The Xperience Las Vegas Residency (2019) (residency intro)
• Skydance Media fanfare (2010–2022)
• "Learning to Fly", a single by Christina Aguilera (2023; producer)

Awards and nominations

References

1. "White Bear PR Composer Talk with Pinar Toprak". YouTube. 19 May 2020. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
2. ^ Greiving, Tim (27 October 2020). "The Billion-Dollar Composer". Alta Online. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
3. Guerrasio, Jason (24 August 2018). "Inside the inspiring journey of 'Captain Marvel' composer Pinar Toprak, from moving to America at 17 to becoming the first female composer of a Marvel movie". Business Insider. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
4. ^ "About". Pinar Toprak. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
5. ^ "Composer Pinar Toprak Cracks Celluloid Ceiling with Captain Marvel | Berklee College of Music". Berklee website. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
6. ^ "Breaking a Sound Barrier with Captain Marvel | Berklee College of Music". www.berklee.edu. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
7. "Interview with Pinar Toprak – Fade to Her". FadeToHer. Archived from the original on 6 December 2020. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
8. ^ "Pinar Toprak: Super Scores". Headliner. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
9. "Second Wave of Nominees 19th World Soundtrack Awards Revealed". World Soundtrack Awards. Archived from the original on 16 October 2019. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
10. ^ "20 ASCAP Screen Music Greats Nominated for World Soundtrack Awards". ASCAP. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
11. ^ "Pinar Toprak". IMDb. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
12. ^ "Pınar Toprak becomes first Turkish composer nominee for Emmys". Hürriyet Daily News. 24 August 2020. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
13. ^ Newman, Melinda (18 August 2022). "Pinar Toprak Composes New Theme for Prime Video's 'Thursday Night Football': Hear It Now". Billboard. Retrieved 2 January 2024. The driving, propulsive track soars and builds with a tension that mimics the tense action on the field.
14. Berlingame, Joe (19 July 2022). "'Captain Marvel' Composer Pinar Toprak Pens Theme for Amazon Prime's 'Thursday Night Football'". Variety. Retrieved 2 January 2024. A triumphal, brass- and drum-heavy earworm that builds in intensity and power over its full three-minute duration.
15. Bumbaca, Chris (18 August 2022). "'A new NFL tradition': Prime Video releases theme song for 'Thursday Night Football'". USA Today. Retrieved 2 January 2024. You listen to this once, you're humming the theme.
16. "Pinar Toprak". IMDb. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
17. "'Captain Marvel' Enlists Pinar Toprak as Composer". The Hollywood Reporter. 14 June 2018. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
18. "Pinar Toprak Scoring Zach Parrish's Disney Animated Short 'Us Again'". Film Music Reporter. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
19. "Pinar Toprak to Score Cal Brunker's 'PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie'". Film Music Reporter. 25 January 2023. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
20. "Season 2 Episode 11 | Pinar Toprak took a pivotal trip to Tower Records". SCORE: A FILM MUSIC DOCUMENTARY. 25 June 2019. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
21. "Prime Video Sports Theme". Youtube Music. 17 August 2022. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
22. "Home Page – Pinar Toprak". pinartoprak.com. Archived from the original on 1 June 2019. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
23. "I've had the incredible honor to write the opening for Christina Aguilera's (...)". Facebook. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
24. "Pinar Toprak". Television Academy. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
25. "Pinar Toprak receives her IFMCA Award for The Lightkeepers". IFMCA: International Film Music Critics Association. 2 March 2011. Retrieved 31 December 2023.

External links

• Official website
• Pinar Toprak at IMDb

• 1980 births
• 21st-century American composers
• 21st-century American women composers
• 21st-century Turkish women musicians
• American film score composers
• American television composers
• American video game composers
• American women film score composers
• Berklee College of Music alumni
• Berklee College of Music faculty
• Living people
• Musicians from Istanbul
• Skydance Media people
• Turkish emigrants to the United States
• Turkish film score composers
• Women television composers