Thomas Tierney (1942-) | University of Illinois Archives

Thomas Tierney was born in Columbia, Missouri and raised in Murphysboro, Illinois by his mother, Jane Rollo Tierney; Father, Jack Tierney; and step mother Mary Tierney. Facscinated with film and television soundtracks, he began composing in the 5th grade. As a 7th grader, he began studying composition. In 1961 he began his bachelor's degree in advertising at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In that same year, he produced his first musical revue Livin the Life with the Illini Student Board. As a student he composed several songs for the Illinois Stunt Show and the Singing Illini. During his senior year, he produced his first musical theater work for television, Gettin' On To Evenin', which aired on WILL-TV. After graduating in 1965, he pursued and earned a masters degree in radio television advertising from the University of Illinois in 1968. Following this, he began work on a PhD in communications, but abandoned the degree to pursue a career as a composer in New York City.

In 1969, Tierney began working for the New York Telephone Company as a composer. Soon after, he met his future wife Maureen, who worked for the same company, and the two were wed in 1974. In the early 1970s, Tierney received contracts to produce advertising music for several commercials companies. His work can be heard in commercials for Coca-Cola, Astra USA, Oral-B, IBM, and State Farm Insurance. His song "Bringing the World Closer To You!" served as the theme song and background music for AT&T's pavilion at Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center. Through his commercial work, he has won numerous ASCAP awards and served on the Board of Governors at the New York Television Academy.

Since 1971, Tierney has composed several hit musicals that have been performed in off-Broadway locales like the Performing Arts Repertory Theater, Theatre Works USA, and the Good Speed Theater. He has collaborated with such librettists as Ted Drachman (Narnia, Susan B!, The Amazing Einstein), John Forster (Teddy Roosevelt, The Dream Team, Eleanor), and Sean O'Donnell (Jungle Queen Debutante). In 1984, Tierney's one-act musical First Lady, which was later renamed Eleanor, was performed at the White House. It received a 1999 performance at Ford's Theater for which then senator Hilary Clinton was in attendance. His Narnia Suite was performed at Lincoln Center in 1997. Many of his works are designed to be performed by or for children, including his Zack Hill and the Rocket Blaster Man Adventure, which was composed in 2020 and is based on the comic strip of the same name.

In 2021, Tierney wrote the book Five Guys in a Beetle, The Grandest Grand Tour: Europe, 1963, which was published by Sunstone Press and documented his college roadtrip to Europe in 1963.