Tom Erba started in music at the ripe age of 3.a classmate in preschool brought a violin to show & tell, and he begged moms & pops for months to let him play one. They finally acquiesced, and he never put the instrument down. Studying the Suzuki method, Tom was a member of the Sacramento Junior Symphony at the age of 6. He was exposed to a pretty wide spectrum of music from a very young age. Studying percussion in his teen years with the legendary Sacramento drummer Rick Lotter, Tom drummed int the Davis High Jazz ensemble, which attended the Montreaux Jazz festival in 1998. Selected for Stanford University's A-Group Jazz Workshop in 1987, he took master classes with the late Billy Higgins (Mles Davis, Sonny Rollins). This exposure changed his life changed forever - befriending Billy's protege Kharon Harrison at the workshop, Tom visited him in Baldwin Hills the next summer, sitting in regularly at Fifth Street Dick's, and soaking up the vibrant Lemert Park scene every chance he had. After returning home to Sacramento, Tom completed high school and left to study music composition at US Santa Barbara, where he performed regularly with his string quartet at venues in both Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, and began to discover his passion for composition. He completed his master's in composition at NYU two years later, and immediately moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in music, both for records and for picture. He was offered a job at oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer's Media Ventures as an assistant and ghost writer, and worked on such films as TEARS OF THE SUN, and MATCHSTICK MEN. After Media Ventures, Tom was approached by award-winning veteran composer Stephen James Edwards, who quickly hired me as a staff composer for his source music library, Source In Sync. Tom quickly released 5 full-length genre releases on Source In Sync, with placements in dozens of Network Series including Alias, Desperate Housewives, Las Vegas, CSI Miami, and The Shield. In 2005, Warner Brothers produced 39 all-original episodes of the classic animation cartoon Tom & Jerry. Tom submitted an orchestral demo for the project and was selected to be the newest composer at Warner Brothers Animation, beating out a large pool of veteran, incumbent composers, many of them 20 years his senior. An instant hit, Tom & Jerry Tales continues to air both internationally and domestically, and has become the number one animated television show on Saturday morning, on Kids WB. Numerous fan websites have been launched since the show's release, In 2007, Tom was nominated for 3 Film & TV Music Awards - one for Best Theme Song for his opening Title for Tom And Jerry Tales, one for Best Score For An Animated Television Series For Tom & Jerry Tales, And one for Best Use Of Song In A Feature Film for his hip hop anthem 'Bring It On" with recording artist Aloe Blacc, in the film Undisputed II: Last Man Standing. Tom took home 2 trophies, beating out Moby's "Mysterious Ways" for best Use Of Song In A Feature Film and the legendary Alf Clasuen's Simpson's Score for Best Score For An Animated Television Series. Tom currently resides in Silver Lake, and continues to compose and produce music for records and picture.
