Christopher Chiyan Tin (born May 21, 1976) is an American composer. His work is primarily orchestral and choral, often with a world music influence. He is a two-time Grammy Award winner.

Tin is best known for his work on title themes for the Civilization video game series, specifically the main theme "Baba Yetu" from the video game Civilization IV, which, at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards in 2011, became the first piece of video game music to win a Grammy Award. This Grammy win has been considered a significant milestone for the critical acceptance of music from video games, and following this win the Recording Academy retitled their visual media categories to become more inclusive of video game soundtracks, before eventually creating a dedicated Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media in 2022.

Tin was born May 21, 1976 in Palo Alto, California, to immigrant parents from Hong Kong. He attended Stanford University, and had a brief period as an exchange student at the University of Oxford. He double majored in music composition and English literature, and minored in art history. In his time at university, he supplemented his studies by participating in various jazz, musical theatre, and world music student groups. Tin graduated in 1998, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors, and continued to study at Stanford, receiving a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, with an emphasis in film studies, in 1999.

In 1999, Tin was admitted to the Royal College of Music's Master of Music in Composition for Screen program, and simultaneously received a Fulbright Scholarship, which was the first to be awarded for film scoring. There, he studied composition with Joseph Horovitz, orchestration with Julian Anderson, and conducting with Neil Thomson. He graduated with Distinction and won the Joseph Horovitz composition prize as the student with the highest overall marks in his course.

While a student at the Royal College of Music, Tin completed his first commission, the string quartet Lacrymosa, for the U.S. Embassy in London. Tin found his first professional employment as a staff arranger for Silva Screen Records, where his job was to transcribe orchestral film scores (by John Williams, James Horner, John Barry, and others) by ear so they could be rerecorded by live orchestra for album release.

In 2000, Tin moved to Los Angeles and continued to arrange scores for Silva Screen Records while searching for more permanent employment. His first internship was with Hans Zimmer. Tin found freelance work with composers Joel McNeely, who hired him to make synthesized mockups of his film scores for a series of Disney films, and John Ottman, who gave him incidental music to write for X2: X-Men United. He also worked for record producer Michael Brook, who took him to India on tour as a keyboardist.

In 2003, Tin participated in the Sundance Institute Film Music Lab, where he met jazz pianist Billy Childs. Childs referred Tin for his first composing job, which was scoring a documentary for New York Times Television. This led to a period of writing music for New York-based documentary filmmakers (notably Deborah Dickson) and advertising clients (notably Puma).

Tin's biggest break came in 2005, when video game designer Soren Johnson, Tin's former roommate at Stanford, asked him to compose the theme song for Civilization IV. In response, Tin composed "Baba Yetu" for the main theme, a choral, Swahili version of the Lord's Prayer recorded by his former a cappella group, Stanford Talisman. The song was widely praised, with over 20 reviewers of the game singling out the theme on game review websites such as IGN and GameSpy. The song's first live performance was on September 21, 2006, at the Hollywood Bowl as part of a Video Games Live concert, where it featured Stanford Talisman and was conducted by Jack Wall.