My Background
Dr Tom Harrison is a composer and lecturer based near Oxford. His music has been used on over 200 different television series, he has a PhD in Composition from the Royal College of Music, and his book How to Become a Film Composer is published worldwide by Hal Leonard.
After graduating from Berklee College of Music summa cum laude, he spent a decade working as a composer out in Hollywood. While in Hollywood, he assisted top composers including W.G. Snuffy Walden, Deborah Lurie, Christopher Tyng, and Alf Clausen. His longest assignment in Hollywood was assisting composer John M. Keane on 3 seasons of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Tom rejoined the CSI music team as Arranger, working remotely from London, in 2024.
Harrison’s PhD research at the Royal College of Music focused on the composition of music for cartoons. Building upon key elements of the pioneering style of Scott Bradley (1891-1977), the research seeks to extend the boundaries of cartoon music today through the exploration and application of contemporary composition techniques, such as those used by Cage, Ferneyhough, and others. Through the incorporation of chance, graphic notation, improvisation, and systematic techniques, a varied portfolio of compositions explores new frontiers of cartoon music practice. These techniques provide useful creative disruption and evocative results, raising questions about the malleability of music for animation. Creative use of contemporary technologies is utilised through the exploration of remote recording, collage, spatialisation, and expansion of timbre.
Dr Harrison is currently dividing his time between composing, research, lecturing at the university level, and running his two production music libraries.
