Biography
Tom McLeod is an award-winning composer whose dynamic musical background encompasses diverse genres, enriching his work across film, television, theatre, and orchestral projects.
After graduating from the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington with a major in jazz piano, Tom spent several years performing at festivals throughout New Zealand with various acts, including his comedic persona Tommy Love. He then collaborated with composer and arranger Terry Gray, producing and arranging music for television.
This experience sparked Tom’s passion for narrative composing, leading to a career scoring numerous films and TV shows, as well as stage musicals like the large-scale 2018 production City Of 100 Lovers and the opera Ihitai 'Avei'a - Star Navigator, created in partnership with composer and lyricist Tim Finn.
In 2021, Tom won Best Original Score for Fight For The Wild at the NZTV Awards. He has been a multiple finalist at the APRA Awards and has twice received the APRA Best Original Music in a Series award for the TV comedy Girl Vs Boy.
His screen credits include the Netflix docu-drama series Blood, Sex and Royalty, the comedy feature Dead, the family film Kiwi Christmas, the fantasy-adventure Into The Rainbow, the true-life drama 3 Mile Limit, and the WWI six-part epic When We Go To War.
Tom has also composed scores for numerous feature documentaries that have achieved international festival success, such as When The Cows Come Home, Camino Skies, Pecking Order, The Art of Recovery, and Candyman, as well as the docu-series Fight For The Wild. He scored several New Zealand/Germany tele-features with ZDF based on Emilie Richards’ romance novels and has worked on local children’s television series like the superhero show The Amazing Extraordinary Friends and the musical drama series Karaoke High.
Collaborations with prominent New Zealand recording artists include The Phoenix Foundation, Louis Baker, and Tim Finn, notably for their recent recording of Ihitai 'Avei'a - Star Navigator with West Australian Opera and the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. Tom has produced and arranged albums such as Tim Beveridge’s Come Rain Come Shine, recorded with the Buddy Childers Big Band in Los Angeles (Sony Music), and The Spirit Symphony with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
In addition, Tom co-wrote the musical comedy-drama series Tommy Love for Prime in 2006, starring in the pilot episode. He reprised the role in the 2010 TV3 talk-show style pilot The Tommy Love Show and again in 2022 for Tom Sainsbury’s The Love Hour on TV3.
