About the SCA »

Thomas McGurk

Thomas McGurk has been involved in both engineering and composing in Seattle for the past ten years. His extensive sound design work on all five seasons of Bill Nye, the Science Guy, won him five national Emmy Awards for sound design and mixing in 1996, ’97, ’98, and ’99. He also post-scored on the show, for everything from hip-hop to Wagner.

This past year, a short film Tom worked on was shown at the Sundance and Aspen Film Festivals. He just completed Treasuries of the World, a series of six PBS documentaries, with styles ranging from Indian to Gamelan, traditional Russian Classical, contemporary American Jazz, and more. A sample of this music was included on the CD in the spring issue of Film Score Monthly. Tom is currently working on two independent films which will hopefully appear at the Seattle Film Festival.

Tom also composes music for Humongous Entertainment, a company producing video games for children, such as Freddi Fish, Putt Putt, and Spy Fox. He also works on local commercials, and even admits to being one of those “annoying Infomercial composers” for George Foreman’s Greaseless Grill and the Breadman, for CRTV.

Tom has a BA in Sound Recording Technology/Music Performance from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, from whom he received the 1998 Francis Cabot Lowell Young Alumni award in Fine Arts. He is also a graduate of Middlesex Community College, with an AS in Computer Programming and Operations.

He won two more national Emmys in 2000, bringing his total to seven. He also won a local Emmy for composition, for the KCTS Many Faces Many Voices - National Campaign on Diversity.

He is currently a staff composer, sound designer, and co-owner at Bad Animals, and the owner of Flopsy Music.