Pinar Toprak Scores Thursday Night Football Theme for NFL

The latest in a career of firsts, the Berklee alumna is the first woman to compose for the NFL—and its first new theme in 16 years.

September 12, 2022

Upon the launch of Berklee's new major in game and interactive media scoring, Sean McMahon, chair of the Screen Scoring Department, commented on the changing nature of the media composition world, saying “You're not a film composer [or] TV composer—you're a composer, writing for all media.”

Embodying the kind of compositional agility that McMahon describes, Pinar Toprak B.M. '00 has scored blockbuster films such as Captain Marvel, the video game juggernaut Fortnite, and music for Disney's Epcot theme park. On top of that diverse résumé, Toprak is the first woman to score a major superhero movie and the first woman to score a film that grossed over $1 billion (both for Captain Marvel).

Her latest work adds to both of the accomplishments above, as she's now written a score for a major sporting event, Amazon Prime Video's Thursday Night Football, becoming the first woman to compose a theme for the NFL in the process. "I could not be more excited to share this new anthem with the world, and hope it will connect with fans and players alike as we make TNF history,” Toprak told Billboard.

Watch Pinar Toprak conduct a performance of her new theme for Thursday Night Football: