Erin Tomkins is a composer and pianist from Lawrence, Kansas. Her compositions span film, theatre, and contemporary concert music, encompassing a broad range of styles and genres.
Erin has composed original scores for documentaries, short films, and animated film. Recent projects include short films The Nothing (2019) by Alex Armando Torres, Strip Clara (2020) by Emory Parker, and Where’s the Fire? (2019) by Yonca Talu. Through mentorships with BMI, ASCAP, and the Society of Composers and Lyricists, she has worked with Mark Suozzo, Rick Baitz, Sean Callery, and Chris Hajian. She is a member of New York Women in Film and Television, the Alliance for Women Film Composers, the Society of Composers and Lyricists, and ASCAP.
Erin's concert works have been performed at home and abroad, including the premiere of Mississippi Holler by the JACK Quartet in 2014. In 2012, Erin won an honorable mention in the Vanguard Premieres Choral Composition Competition for her choral work Falling Snow, which was performed in Dearborn, Michigan in 2013. Her composition Images of Water was awarded an honorable mention in the 2012 Buffalo Chamber Players International Composition Competition, and was performed that year in Buffalo, New York. Her music has also been performed at the Oklahoma State University Festival of Contemporary Music, as well as in Cortona, Italy, as part of the Cortona Sessions for New Music.
In 2017, Erin composed and performed original music for The Conductor, a theatre and robotics production at Goldsmiths, University of London by Cormac Joyce. Other theatre works include original music and sound design for Bedside (2011), 4.48 Psychosis (2011), The Pillowman (2010), and A Midsummer Night’s Dream(2010). The first Original Pronunciation production in the United States, her sound design for A Midsummer Night’s Dream received a Special Commendation from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in 2011.
Erin also researches music and film, and has presented original research at the graduate student conference at King's College London in 2017 and at the Music and the Moving Image conference in New York in 2014, 2015, and 2016. Erin holds an MA in Film Studies from King’s College London (2018), an MM in Scoring for Film and Multimedia from New York University (2015), and a BM in Piano Performance and Music Composition from the University of Kansas (2012). Erin lives in New York City.