Speakers

Don Davis

Lifetime Achievement Award

Two-time Emmy Award winning composer/conductor Don Davis has enjoyed a widely varied musical career, not only as a composer of orchestral and chamber works for the concert stage, but also as a versatile dramatic composer and conductor of film music. His compositions have been performed by ensembles such as The Los Angeles Master Chorale, XTET, the Arditti Quartet, the Calder Quartet, and the Debussy Trio. His opera Río de Sangre was premiered by the Florentine Opera Company, with its world premiere recording released by Albany Records. He is best known for his film scores for the hit film trilogy The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Matrix Revolutions.

Stephen Warbeck

Composing for Film

Stephen Warbeck (born 1953) is an English Oscar Award-winning composer, best known for his work on television and film. He has composed the music for Prime Suspect, Mrs. Brown, Mystery Men, Billy Elliot, Quills, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Charlotte Gray, Proof and Princess Kaiulani, amongst others. He won the Oscar for Best Soundtrack for his work on Shakespeare in Love in 1999.

Kyan Bayani

Composing for TV series

Kyan Bayani is a composer and sound artist currently living and working in Berlin and Luxembourg. He has composed music for a variety of projects including films, dance choreographies, theatre plays and TV series and documentaries. As a sound artist he created multichannel sound installations and sound objects. He graduated from the University of the Arts Berlin where he studied with artists such as Sam Auinger, Robert Henke and Hans Peter Kuhn.

Having worked on projects in cities around Europe, Japan and South Korea, the primary focus of his work is the relationship between sound and the different architectural or emotional spaces it can occupy. His compositions are comprised of everyday sounds, field recordings and traditional instruments combined to inhabit the same auditory spaces.

Helge Borgarts

Composing for Videogames

Helge Borgarts is a German composer for games, film and television. He started his career with Blue Byte Software, the developer and publisher of famous games like the Settlers, Battle Isle or Extreme Assault. From 2006 to 2013 he was CEO of phenomedia publishing gmbh, one of Germany’s best-known developers and publishers of computer- and videogames, famous for the brand “Moorhuhn”. During that time he produced and/or scored more than 25 games for all important gaming platforms.
Since 2013 he is working as a freelancing composer and since 2011 Helge is the program manager for games music at the renowned festival and conference for music in film and media Soundtrack_Cologne. He was speaker at events like the Transatlantyk 2013 Poznan International Film and Music Festival or the Austria Film Music Day, is a regular lecturer at German universities and produces video games music concerts, e.g. with the Young Classic Sound Orchestra or the WDR Funkhausorchester.

Working in the media industry for more than 15 years, he was involved in several projects as a composer and producer. He wrote music for films like the Silver Screen Award winning movie “Seven” from Revanth Korukonda and for television documentaries like “Everyday life in space - life on the ISS” or “The Ghost Hunters”. Helge scored trailers for developers and publishers like Crytek, Stratotainment or Higgs Games. He wrote and scored the orchestral soundtrack for the video game “Jade Rousseau – The Final Revelations” and produced and contributed music to the game “Tiger & Chicken”, which was awarded as Best Mobile Core Game at the German Developer Awards. He also scored the latest game of that brand “Crazy Chicken Strikes Back” and provided the music for the games “Bring Them Home” and “Transroad”, the latter developed by the award-winning team from Deck13. With his partner Thomas Stanger he founded the brand “BowsToHymns” which contributed music for companies like Spitfire Audio, Warner/Chappell Music Production, SPM Music Group, Trailer Brigade, Orchestral Tools or Steinberg. Their latest scores were for the highly acclaimed games “The Surge – The Good, the Bad and the Augmented” and “The Surge 2”.

Helge works in Mülheim an der Ruhr and Cologne.

Dascha Dauenhauer

Composer

Dascha Dauenhauer began playing the piano at the age of five, which was soon followed by piano and composition lessons. A large variety of own works was created. Her orchestral piece "Sinfonietta“ was premiered at the Philharmonie Berlin in 2004. After her study in piano and music theory (UdK), she completed her Master of Film Music at the Filmuniversity KONRAD WOLF. Since then she has worked on numerous cinema productions. Her films are shown internationally at many established film festivals. Furthermore she has been nominated three times for the German Film Music Award in 2018 and won in the categories “Best Music in a Short Film” and “New Talent”. In 2020, she won the German Film Academy Award in the category Best Original Music Score for BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ.

Hannes de Maeyer

Reality Check Case Studies

Hannes De Maeyer is one of Belgium's most versatile composers, best known for his collaboration with director duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, recently listed among 'Variety's 10 Directors to watch' with their third feature Gangsta (Patser).
After obtaining his Master's degree in 'Music Production' at the School of Arts of University College Ghent, Hannes starts working as composer assistant to Steve Willaert, one of Belgium's most prolific screen composer, and starts composing for several project produced by A Team Productions such as Land of the Heroes and Baghdad Messi by worldwide praised director Sahim Omar Kalifa. 
When Hannes meets the talented Belgian directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, they decide to collaborate for their first feature Image, quickly followed by Black, awarded with the Discovery Awards during the 40th edition of TIFF in 2015.  For El Arbi & Fallah's recently released flashy third feature Gangsta (Patser), De Maeyer created the perfect musical power shot, full of games vibes and inspired by both iconic 80s film scores and contemporary electronic influences. 
His recent projects include Rafaël, a Dutch romantic drama by award-winning filmmaker Ben Sombogaart and one of nine films shortlisted to be the Dutch entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards and the German feature Immenhof, an immensely popular youth film by Sharon von Wietersheim. In collaboration with Gregory Caron, Hannes also composed the music to 3 seasons of Professor T., the internationally renowned Flemish police series, directed by, Indra Sierra and Tim Mielants amongst others. Hannes just finished an epic score to Torpedo (U-235), a very ambitious adventurous submarine film by Sven Huybrechts which currently runs in theaters and the Dutch tv series Keisersvrouwen, directed by Ben Sombogaart & Dries Vos, which will be broadcast on NPO3 later this month.

Nainita Desai

Composing for Videogames

Working at the forefront of a new wave of emerging artists, Nainita is a BAFTA BREAKTHROUGH BRIT and has worked in British television for over two decades scoring countless BAFTA, Oscar, and Emmy acclaimed productions. Nainita’s 2019 feature releases include FOR SAMA which won 35 top prizes including Best Documentary Feature at SXSW and Cannes Film Festival.

The PRS placed Desai at No 2 in their Top 10 female writers whose work was most used in Film & TV through 2018. She won Best Feature Film Score at the Music+Sound Awards 2016 , and was a BIFA Best Film Score nominee and RTS Best TV Title Theme 2019 nominee, amongst nine other 2019 music accolades.

Her 2020 projects include feature film THE REASON I JUMP (BFI | Met Films) world premieres at Sundance 2020, Netflix original series BAD BOY BILLIONAIRES and innovative Quibi | BBC NHU series FIERCE QUEENS.

For her score for the interactive game TELLING LIES she won the prize for Best Original Music for a video game trailer at the Music+Sound Awards 2019.

Valerie Dobbelaere

Reality Check

Valerie Dobbelaere studied Iberian linguistics & literature as well as Peace Studies and ConflictResolution at the Ghent University in Belgium. In 2007 Valerie started working at the guest office of Film Fest Gent, where she, between 2010 and 2019,coordinates the music and sound projects (concert productions, masterclasses, compositioncontest, the annual World Soundtrack Awards, album recording, industry events, internationalcollaborations,..)and loves establishing the necessary platform to both established and young & upcoming film (music) talent. Valerie has worked with several renowned composers such as Howard Shore, Hans Zimmer, Elliot Goldenthal, James Newton Howard, Alberto Iglesias, Giorgio Moroder and Alexandre Desplat. Since 2017 Valerie joined Post Bills, a Brussels-based Press & Communication Agency, specializing in PR for film, TV & film music projects.

Yati Durant

AcadeMeet und IMMSANE

Yati Durant is a U.S. born composer, lecturer, trumpeter and conductor. His musical background began with composition and jazz music from the age of 7. He was a founding member of the experimental jazz ensemble Honey Junkie and The Yati Durant Project Band in the 1990s. He studied with Portland trumpeter (and Grammy winner) Thara Memory before moving to New York, where he began a successful stint as a TV and film music composer. Yati holds a Diploma and prestigious Konzertexam Meisterklasse in composition from the Polish composer Krzysztof Meyer at the State Conservatory of Music in Cologne, Germany, as well as a Diploma in Electronic Composition under Hans Ulrich Humpert. He has also studied with George Crumb, Philip Lasser, Narcis Bonet, Lee Konitz and conducting with Jonathan Brett. From 2010 - 2019 Yati was a Lecturer and Programme Director of the MSc Composition for Screen Programme at the University of Edinburgh. His compositions and films have received many prizes from International festivals, including a 3rd Pl. Panorama Public Prize at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival for Erika Rabau – Der Puck von Berlin and a BAFA National Commerce Film Award nomination for the WDR/ARD documentary Ein Klavier geht um die Welt.
He is a finalist of the 2009 Concorso Giovani Musicisti Europei in Aosta, Italy with his score to C. Chaplin’s The Vagabond. His contemporary compositions have been commissioned and performed in New York, Seattle, Berlin, Edinburgh, Cologne and Sao Paolo, released on CD and DVD by Film Dienst/Normal Records, Filmmuseum München and he remains an active performer of jazz, with regular appearances and recordings throughout Europe and USA. His TV and Film credits include work for WDR, ARD, HBO, MTV, Disney and many others.

André Feldhaus

Composing for TV series

Born in Münster, André Feldhaus began his musical education on the piano. In the 1990s he founded the German punk band Mother‘s Ruin, an outfit which toured and released singles and albums. During his studies in Liverpool and Bremen he started composing music for films and formed collaborations with up and coming directors. After his graduation in German Studies and Film Studies he started to work as a freelance composer. Since then, he has contributed to the scores for nearly 120 films, including major television work and cinema releases, among them 4 KÖNIGE which won the Deutsche Filmpreis in Bronze in 2016, DIE HÄNDE MEINER MUTTER, NORDSTRAND and the popular German television series TATORT.

Milena Fessmann

Reality Check / Case Study

Since 1991, Milena Fessmann has worked as a full-time DJ (2001-2014 Radio Eins After Work Lounge, Trompete/Berlin, European Film Awards 2015 etc.) and has worked for various radio stations. Since 1997 she works for Radio Eins/RBB and her own weekly show called Free Falling.

In 1989 she founded CINESONG. She is moderator of several national events and panels such as the Cartoon Movie Award/Postdam 2002-2008, Reeperbahn-Festival 2014-18, c/o pop Cologne 2014-2018 and many more. Milena Fessmann teaches music supervising and copyright clearing at film schools such as DFFB Berlin and is advisory board member of the World Soundtrack Academy. She founded a film production company called Sugar Town Filmproduction Gmbh & Co. KG in 2011. The first project is The Potential of Noise - Conny Plank by Stephan Plank and Reto Caduff. She is executive-producer of When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit, directed by award winning director Caroline Link and is co-producer on Evaluation, Girl made of Dust, Director: Hiam Abbass, Prince of swans and a few more.

Tobias Fleig

Reality Check Case Studies

Tobias Fleig is working in film-sound since 1997. Self-employed since 1999 he is running his own facility in Cologne and founded a cinema dubbing atelier in 2014 in Berlin.
Over the years working as a Sound Designer or Re-Recording Mixer he took part in more then 100 Cinema Features. His most recognized work can be seen in THE COUNTERFEITERS (Won Oscar in 2008), LEBANON (Won Golden Lion Venice 2009) or BAL - Honey (Won Golden Bear Berlin 2010).

Tobias was awarded with the Austrian film price for the best sound mix of UNTITLED in 2018 and in 2019 with the German film prize for best sound on STYX.

Ivonne Gärber

Sound Design & Music: Der Preis der Anne Lena Schnabel

Ivonne Gärber wurde 1962 in Köln geboren und wuchs in Wolfsburg auf. Sie begann 1987 ein Studium der Filmwissenschaft an der Deutschen Film- und Fernsehakademie (DFFB) in Berlin. Sie sammelte Erfahrungen in verschiedenen technischen Abteilungen, spezialisierte sich aber schnell auf den Ton. In diesem Bereich wurde sie 1989 als Tonassistentin und Tonmeisterin für Spiel- und Dokumentarfilme tätig. Im Jahr 1994 schloss sie ihr Studium an der DFFB ab und arbeitet seitdem als Tonmeisterin für verschiedene Kino- und Fernsehprojekte. Seit 2010 lehrt Ivonne an der Fachhochschule Darmstadt und anderen Institutionen die Kunst der praktischen Tonarbeit und des Sounddesigns.

Ulrich Geiger

Music Politics

Ulrich Geiger, born in 1964, learned to play the violin and oboe and then played the drums for over 20 years. He studied electrical engineering, but then preferred to go into television to work as a writer, editor and finally as a studio director.
Geiger was GEMA representative of the Hessian Broadcasting Corporation and now heads the ARD/ZDF project Audiofingerprinting.

John Groves

Music Politics

John Groves is a British composer, musician and producer, and a specialist for the use of sound and music in advertising and communication. He is known mainly for his memorable jingles and advertising songs. In the early nineties, he developed a structured system for creating sound identities for brands. This methodology provided the basis for what now is known as "Sound Branding". In recent years, John has dedicated a lot of his time to the study of psychoacoustics and the applied use of sound in a healthcare context; from navigational sounds for medical equipment to Receptive Sound Therapy programs for helping to improve sleep, manage stress, and more.

John Gürtler

Reality Check Case Studies

John Gürtler (*1981) is a multiple award-winning film composer currently based in Berlin. He has written over 40 film scores and produces electronic music, songs and orchestral work and has won several awards, including ‘Best Song in a Film’ at the 2014 German Film Music Awards for ‘What Love Is’, the ‘German Documentary Award’ for ‘Above and Below’ at DOK.fest München in 2015 and the ‘European Original Score 2019’ for ‘System Crasher', presented by the European Film Academy.

Eva-Lotte Hill

Music Politics

For more than ten years now, Eva-Lotte Hill’s daily business at Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland has been the music reporting to collecting societies. Starting out the pre-digital way as a student employee at Copyright Affairs, she now manages the use of audio fingerprinting technology and the collaboration with a monitoring service for music usage in linear television.

Working in close collaboration with all kinds of media experts she also faces the challenges that creative online use of music represents. Making sure every used piece of music is licensed and reported properly is becoming all the more challenging as the range of online content is steadily broadening.

Matthias Hornschuh

Music Politics

David Housden

Composing for Videogames

David is a BAFTA and Ivor Novello nominated composer, best known for his collaborations with visionary game developer Mike Bithell on the BAFTA winning Thomas Was Alone and Volume.

Drawing on his garage band days, David creates melodic, original scores for some of the most immersive new games out there. Harnessing synths, strings, pianos and augmented found sounds, his sonic palette constantly pushes the boundaries of media music.

Receiving further recognition for his talents, he received a pretigious Ivor Novello nomination for his work on the sci-fi narrative puzzler QUBE 2 earlier this year. His other current projects include Rare’s remake of the cult classic Battletoads (Xbox One), the award-winning narrative adventure Lost Words (PS4, Xbox One, Switch), and atmospheric noir horror hit The Peterson Case (PS4, Xbox One).

Anja Kofmel

Sound design & music

Anja Kofmel studied at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences & Arts (HSLU) and the École Nat. Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Since 2011 she is working as an independent illustrator, animation and documentary filmmaker. Always keen on furthering her capabilities, she continues to attend various trainings in the field of storytelling, storyboarding and production. In 2016 she founded her company asako film GmbH. She is as a guest lecturer for animated documentary & storytelling in Switzerland, France and Germany and became a professor at HSLU in 2019. Her first animated documentary CHRIS THE SWISS premiered at the Cannes Film Festival 2018, won over 20 awards and was nominated for Camera d’or (Cannes), Prix Lumière and the European Animation Award. Anja Kofmel is currently working on a feature length animated film about perception and the impact of new technology on society. 

Cornelia Köhler

Sound Design & Music

Cornelia Köhler works in the media industry since 2000, first as a producer of sitcoms Das Amt and Bernds Hexe for Cologne-Gemini film, later in the script development for Constantin Entertainment. Since 2007 Cornelia Köhler is an independent producer/script-writer/dramaturge for cinema and TV formats. She is editor of the magazine Rundbrief (Film-und Medienbüro Niedersachsen) and director and scriptwriter for a series of documentaries about German Literature (e.g. about Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Friedrich Schiller), worked among others as dramaturge for the feature films Low Lights (produced by dagstarfilm, 2009), Pattys Catchup (dagstarfilm, 2011) and as co-writer for the German-Lithuanian documentary Liebe Oma, Guten Tag (dagstarfilm, 2017, supported by the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW). Since 2009 she has been a member of Women in Film and Television Germany and since 2010 is a board member of WIFT Germany.

Dr. Anselm Kreuzer

Music Politics

Anselm Kreuzer began playing the Cello at age 9 and soon discovered composing as his major passion. Already back then he combined the classical approach with modern sounds. After finishing school he studied musicology, media science and phonetics at the Cologne University and achieved a Ph.D. with a dissertation on Film Music. During his time as a student he got several assignments for media compositions, especially in the field of radio and television. Now he is a designated specialist for TV title themes, station IDs, scores for series and TV drama as well as music for new media and advertising.

Also he has an oeuvre of more than 1000 internationally successful production music titles. Among the magazine and news shows he composed for are Weltreisen (ARD), Check Eins - Neuneinhalb (ARD), Die Chefin (ZDF), Die lustigsten Schlamassel (RTL), Lebensläufe (MDR), RBB UM6 (RBB), ZIBB (RBB), Täter Opfer Polizei (RBB). He recently scored for TV series like Küstenwache, Kripo Holstein - Mord und Meer (ZDF), Rosenheim-Cops (ZDF), In Aller Freundschaft (ARD) and  documentaries like Natur Exklusiv (BR).

He is co founder of the production music label MUSIC SCULPTOR. Whether symphonic orchestra or electronic approach - Anselm has a passionate faible for emotional, narrative and often catchy thematic music that merges with moving pictures and stories. He often sounds the borders between composition and sound design and passes on his know how to students as a guest lecturer at several universities and media schools. Also he is engaged as a working group leader in the media industry association Eyes & Ears of Europe and as a board member of the Composers Club.

Markus Krohn

Sound Design & Music: Chris the Swiss

Markus Krohn is a rerecording mixer and sound designer who graduated from the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF with a degree as Tonmeister for Audiovisual Media. He has about 20 years of experience in international film productions of various genres. He has worked internationally in the USA, Jordan, Israel, New Zealand, Russia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Netherlands, Slovenia and others. 
His latest projects include "Heimat ist ein Raum aus Zeit" (D: Thomas Heise) and "Chris the Swiss" (D: Anja Kofmel).

Maxime Luft

Reality Check / Tools

Maxime Luft is a French-German composer for films and live events. He founded the Organic Samples company in 2017 to make his libraries publicly available.

As a composer, he worked with Berlin artist Alexander Stublić for a palace illumination show and regularly collaborates with trailer music labels such as Immediate Music or SPM Music Group, as well as with other composers like Christoph Zirngibl and Jan Pfitzer. In the realm of sampling, Maxime Luft gained his first experiences by recording his own sample libraries for the projects he worked on. He got familiar with legato programming and recording in different acoustic spaces, ending up recording his Ethnic Inspiration and Majestic Horn libraries in a church with multiple microphone positions.

Earlier this year, Maxime Luft set up an exclusive collaboration with Orchestral Tools to pursue his Organic Samples instruments. He now lives in Berlin.

Hanna Sophie Lüke

Reality Check

Hanna Sophie Lüke ist Musikjournalistin, Moderatorin und Musikerin/Komponistin. Ihr Master-Studium „Musikjournalismus für Rundfunk und Multimedia“ schloss sie 2013 mit Auszeichnung ab. Seitdem arbeitet sie als Musikjournalistin u.a. für Redaktionen des Westdeutschen Rundfunks in Köln (1LIVE, WDR 2, WDR 3, WDR 4, WDR Funkhausorchester), und ist regelmäßig im Radio zu hören. Als Bühnen-Moderatorin mit Schwerpunkt auf Wissenschaft, Musik und Zukunftsthemen moderiert sie seit 2013 u.a. das Wissenschaftsfestival EFFEKTE und die regelmäßige EFFEKTE-Reihe in Karlsruhe.

Als Komponistin und Singer-Songwriterin arbeitet Hanna Sophie Lüke seit 2018 mit dem Deutschen Filmorchester Babelsberg zusammen. Sie ist Mitbegründerin des Komponistinnen-Kollektivs track 15 - female composers collective (2018). 2019 folgte die erste gemeinsame Veröffentlichung Neoclassical Score mit dem Filmorchester Babelsberg bei Universal PM.

Martin Lutz

Composing for TV series

Martin Lutz is a Berlin based composer, musician and sound artist. He creates sound pieces for artists, dance companies, theatre and film productions in Europe, India, South-Korea, Mosambique and Australia. He has mentored and participated in residency programmes in India and China. He realised a number of sound installations in Europe and China. He studied sound art at UdK Berlin and musicology at LMU Munich. The focus of his work is the exploration of sound and its meaning and nature in and for the space. Field recordings and experimental sound production are the basis of the compositions, which snatch sounds and soundscapes from their natural environment in order to bring them into a new context of content and space.

Verena Marisa

Composing for TV series

Verena Marisa is a German-Brazilian composer and sound artist, and one of few Theremin artists.

Verena composed the music for award-winning films (Ich will Dich, Operation Zucker with Gerd Baumann). Her orchestral works and theater music premiered with great critical acclaim at the Munich Philharmonic Hall, at the Neuköllner Opera Berlin and at Schauspiel Frankfurt. She has received the German Film Music Award, among others.
She was the first musician to compose a solo program for Theremin and Loopstation and performed at international festivals (Filmfest München, Wave Gotik Treffen, Überjazz Hamburg, Digitalanalog and others). As an orchestra soloist, she performed at the Völkerschlachtdenkmal Leipzig and the Munich Philharmonic Hall.

Micki Meuser

Music Politics

Micki Meuser is a film composer, music producer and songwriter and lives in Berlin.

He wrote the music for over 60 films, including international feature films with Daniel Craig, Kirstin Dunst or Lynn Redgrave, and many feature films for ZDF and ARD, as well as music for TV series in Germany and the USA.

He produced albums and wrote songs for artists like Ideal, Die Ärzte, Ina Deter, Silly, Lassie Singers, Nervous Germans and many others. On many of these recordings he also played bass and keyboards.

Micki Meuser is chairman of the German Film Composers' Union (DEFKOM) and on the board of the German Composers' Association. Meuser is also a member of the GEMA supervisory board.

Thomas Mikusz

Reality Check

He has represented composers at major Film Festivals, such as Berlinale, Festival de Cannes, Sundance and the Tribeca Film Festival. As a team member of White Bear PR, he has contributed to several Emmy-winning and Oscar & Golden Globe winning score contenders, most recently he worked with Hildur Gudnadóttir on “Chernobyl” and “Joker”. In addition, he spearheads the campaigns and oversees Red Carpet and Guest Management for International Film Festivals and Premieres in Los Angeles and Miami, as well as for the Ibero-American movie awards, The Premios Platinos. He also produces content, concerts, panels and red-carpet events. As a speaker he leads panels at conventions and major Film and Music Festivals around the world discussing the craft of film, television and video game music. Furthermore, he teaches workshops on self-promotion for artists at Universities, such as USC and NYU. Thomas is part of the leadership for The Alliance for Women Film Composers and a member of the TV Academy and the World Soundtrack Academy. Originally from Vienna, he lives in Los Angeles.

Tina Pepper

Composing for TV series

Tina Pepper is an award-winning television and film composer based in Berlin. She started her career while studying music at the renowned Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) and went on studying at the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF where she eventually graduated with a Master in film music.
Amongst others she has since written music for award winning films like ‘Combat Girl’ (David Wnendt) and ‘Teardrop’ (Damian John Harper), independent features such as ‘Away you go’ (Philipp Eichholtz) and for the Amazon original series ‘You Are Wanted’ (Matthias Schweighöfer). In 2020 she was awarded the German Television Award for Best Music for her score for the German TV Series 'Rampensau’.

Prof. Dr. Gerhard Pfennig

Update Music Politics

Prof. Dr. Gerhard Pfennig is a lawyer and, since October 2012, has been spokesman for the Copyright Initiative, which represents 30 organisations and unions of authors.

Franziska Pohlmann

Sound Design & Music

Franziska Pohlmann specialised in working with choirs and orchestras as a composer. The melody as a repository of memory is her strongest element. In her work, she refers to her experience as being a member of the Hamburg State Opera Choir, Musical Director at different theatres and songwriting for about 20 years. Her musical work is also an essential part of her filmmaking. Her music feature film The Crown of Arkus was amongst others nominated for the German METROPOLIS prize for directing. The usage of voice as means of expression - and music being an own lingual system within - was her subject also at a TEDx Talk.

At Studio Hamburgs „House of the Young Producers“ she got a scholarship and led the pohlmann creatives UG as founder and CEO from 2013-2017. Next to her broad international network, she established as a director, composer and producer working for such formats as Schloss Einstein or the NSU Protocols. As a composer she is currently developing the film music for the documentary film MISS HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR with director Radek Wegrzyn.

Oliver Schiller-Sittl

Reality Check

Oliver Schiller-Sittl is a classically trained electric guitarist and mandolin player, who is responsible for the acquisitions of entertainment labels, arists & repertoire and the international sales of feiyr's digital services.

Beda Senn

Reality Check

Swiss Television since 2006 and has been responsible for the conception & production of new library/production music since 2018.
Beda Senn has 40 years of know-how in the music sector: programming and conception for various radios, music editor for TV programmes, sound design and consulting for events, fashion and dance.

Janne Spijkervet

Composing for Media

Janne Spijkervet, MSc. is a composer and artificial intelligence researcher who explores the notion of creativity with self-learning algorithms. At the age of 14 she studied classical- and jazz composition at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. She earned her Bachelor of Music degree at the HKU University of Arts Utrecht with honors, interned at Hans Zimmer's studios in Los Angeles, and developed a system that learned to write music like Bach in her thesis. In 2020, she earned her Master of Science degree at the University of Amsterdam where she conducted research about how algorithms learn in an unsupervised manner: without humans that explicitly tell a computer something about the world it perceives. She has worked with artists to create songs using artificial intelligence and has performed on radio and television shows explaining the wide range of possibilities and impact of the creative use of A.I. Her team achieved the second place in the first A.I. Song Contest, which was the first Eurovision Song Contest with songs composed by A.I. algorithms.

Gaute Storaas

Composing for TV series

Gaute Storaas is one of the most experienced and acclaimed film composers of the Nordic countries. In 2017 he was HARPA nominated for his score to "A Man Called Ove" (a film that was subsequently nominated for an Oscar). Neither of the awards were won, but in 2011, Storaas received the HARPA award for "Elias and the Treasure of the Sea", and now once again for Colin Nutley's tv drama, "Bröllup, begravning och dop".

Storaas was an active bass player on the local rock and jazz scene of Bergen, and got his diploma in arranging in 1986 from Berklee College of Music, Boston.

The last 20 years have been spent writing predominantly orchestral music for film and TV, ranging from animations to dramas like "The Last Sentence" by legendary Swedish director Jan Troell. 

Svínhunder

Composing for TV series

Svinhunder is the duo consisting of Hans Mullens and Michel Bisceglia, whose first joint scoring project is Netflix historical-drama series Thieves of the Woods.

Hans Mullens has been a professional musician, composer, arranger, sound designer and music programmer for over 30 years. He is affiliated with the international sound production company Sonhouse and has completed dozens of assignments for the post-production of films (including Cafard, 2015 and Il était une fois, une fois, 2012), TV series (including the six-part Swiss TV Quartier des Bancs series, 2017), documentaries, animated series and advertising spots.

Michel (Michelino) Bisceglia has been professionally active since 1989 as a musician in the arts sector. He has composed the soundtracks for multiple feature films, some of which were screened at the Cannes Film Festival and Venice International Film Festival. His soundtrack for the film Marina won a World Soundtrack Award in 2014.

Hans Mullens has been a professional musician, composer, arranger, sound designer and music programmer for over 30 years. He is affiliated with the international sound production company Sonhouse and has completed dozens of assignments for the post-production of films (including Cafard, 2015 and Il était une fois, une fois, 2012), TV series (including the six-part Swiss TV Quartier des Bancs series, 2017), documentaries, animated series and advertising spots. As a musician, Hans has performed with bands such as Buscemi, Arsenal or Guido Belcanto. He is currently touring with Placenta Plays Placebo.

Michel (Michelino) Bisceglia has been professionally active since 1989 as a musician in the arts sector both in his home country Belgium and abroad. He has composed the soundtracks for multiple feature films. Some of these films were screened at the Cannes Film Festival and Venice International Film Festival. His soundtrack for the film Marina (about the childhood memories of Rocco Granata) won a World Soundtrack Award in 2014. Bisceglia occasionally also arranges, orchestrates and conducts soundtracks for other film composers (such as Cafard composed by Hans Helewaut (won the World Soundtrack Award 2016 for best Belgian Score or Racer and the Jailbird composed by Raf Keunen for Michaël R. Roskam's film).

The Flight

Composing for Videogames

Ivor Novello award winning duo Joe Henson and Alexis Smith began collaborating in 2005 when they co-produced an album for Joe’s band Seventhsun. After realising they had a similar approach to life and wildly divergent musical tastes, they formed a creative partnership that quickly encompassed songwriting, production, and composition.

The duo have worked with some of the biggest names in the music industry as well as being A-list composers for video games. 2014 saw the release of hit survival horror title ALIEN: ISOLATION, and they followed this up with 2017's HORIZON: ZERO DAWN, the Playstation 4's biggest selling new IP to date, and then Ubisoft Québec's ASSASSIN'S CREED ODYSSEY.

The Flight's television projects include the BAFTA nominated BBC documentary series DRUGSLAND, and KIDS ON THE EDGE, produced for Channel 4 by Century Films.

Prof. Dr. Francisco Tigre Moura

Composing for Media

Prof. Dr. Francisco Tigre Moura is a professor of marketing at IUBH University of Applied Sciences (Bad Honnef, Germany). Originally from Brazil, Prof. Dr. Tigre Moura concluded a PhD in marketing in 2012 at the University of Otago in New Zealand where he was awarded for exceptional thesis. Since 2016 his research has focused on topics such artificial creativity, music, technology experiences and general consumer behavior. Some of his recent studies has focused on listeners’ perceptions of artificially composed music.

Brooke Trezise

Sound Design & Music: Wish you Were Here

Brooke Trezise was born an orphan in South Korea before being adopted by a family in Western Australia. It was here she studied Sound for Performance at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. She worked on her first feature, directed by Bruce Beresford, in 2009 and has since worked as a sound designer and editor on many more including The Rocket (Golden Bear, Best Feature), Wish You Were Here (Sundance Opener) and Animal Kingdom (Sundance, Grand Jury Prize). Her speciality is manipulating real world recordings and synthesised tracks to create atmospheric and emotional sound scapes. She lives in Berlin with her partner and small dog.

Marcel Vaid

Sound Design & Music

Marcel Vaid (*1967) works as a musician (guitar) and composer for film. Film music for over 80 feature films worldwide. Head of the electro-acoustic collective Superterz, numerous Tours in Japan and Europe. Collaborations with Nils Petter Molvaer, Norbert Möslang (Voice Crack), Mauro Pawlowski (dEUS), Jojo Mayer (Nerve), Alain Monot (The Young Gods), Marianne Schroeder (John Cage) or Rodrigo Gonzales (Die Ärzte). Worked with Fredi Murer, Marcus Vetter, Milo Rau, Léa Pool, Greg Zglinski or oscar-nominated Timo von Gunten. Wins 2019 his 4^th Swiss Filmprize Best Filmmusic for Chris the Swiss and was a.o. nominated for the European Animation Award. Works as a guest lecturer at the Zurich University of the Arts and is a member of the European Filmacademy EFA and the Swiss Filmacademy.

Than Van Nispen

Reality Check / Tools

Than van Nispen is a lecturer and researcher at HKU School of Music and Technology and the Expertise Centre for Creative Technologies. He is also a music composer for games and interaction, as well as music theatre. Than has a master of science degree in Biology at Utrecht University (2002), as well as a European Media Masters of Arts with honours degree in Composition for the Media at HKU University of the Arts Utrecht (2009) and a Master of Music at the University of the Arts Utrecht (2016). Than has lectured and given workshops since 2004 at, among others, HKU, the Utrecht University, Sound Education, EsArt (Portugal), Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts (China), MediaSoundHamburg (Germany).

Andreas Weidinger

Reality Check Case Studies

Andreas Weidinger composed music for more than 100 films of various genres and is the author of the book "Filmmusik". He is a laureate of the Franz-Grothe-Prize and was nominated for the German Music Author's Prize 2018. He is committed to the protection and strengthening of authors and copyright as the basis of a democratic social order.