Biography
Award-winning composer Pinar Toprak has written music for an impressive number of diverse movies and distinguished filmmakers with over 40 feature film credits to date. She is currently writing the score for the upcoming Superman prequel series “Krypton“ created by David Goyer (Man of Steel, The Dark Knight). She has also been scoring the Netflix original “The Angel” directed by Ariel Vroman (Criminal, The Iceman). She recently finished writing additional music for Warner Bros’ “Justice League” with renowned composer Danny Elfman as well as scoring “Fornite”, a video game from Epic Games. Among her latest scores include the late Michael Clarke Duncan’s last film “The Challenger“, SONY film “The River Murders” starring Ray Liotta and Christian Slater, the period drama “The Lightkeepers” (Richard Dreyfuss, Blythe Danner and Bruce Dern) as well as the 33rd America’s Cup documentary “The Wind Gods” produced by David Ellison (MI: Ghost Protocol, True Grit, World War Z, Terminator).
She has won two International Film Music Critics Association Awards as well as nominated for Best Revelation Composer alongside Trent Reznor and Daft Punk.
Some of her past credits include the action feature film “Behind Enemy Lines 2: Axis of Evil” by 20th Century FOX, the crime drama “Breaking Point” by Lionsgate with Tom Berenger and Busta Rhymes, the animated feature “Light Of Olympia” featuring the voices of Debbie Reynolds and Phyllis Diller as well as the romantic drama “Say It In Russian” starring Faye Dunaway and Stephen Brand. She has also written music for the Xbox 360 video game “Ninety Nine Nights” produced by Microsoft, as well as numerous trailers and commercials. Moreover, she had the privilege to join the Media Ventures team (now known as Remote Control), home of the legendary film composer Hans Zimmer during projects such as “Pirates of The Caribbean“, “The Last Samurai” and “King Arthur“.
Toprak was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, where she began her classical musical education at the age of five. After studying composition and multiple instruments at the conservatory, she moved to Chicago to study jazz, then Boston for a degree in film scoring from Berklee College of Music. She then came to Los Angeles, earned a master’s degree in composition at age 22, and has quickly become an active and refreshing new voice in the Hollywood community.
“At the end of the day it’s all about making a good film,” she says. “Our job as film composers is to serve the filmmaker while enjoying the process.”