AI MusicCon

Michael P. Aust

Festivaldirector SoundTrack_Cologne and Producer TelevisorTroika GmbH

Business graduate (Dipl.-Kfm.) Michael P. Aust is a German curator, organiser of cultural events and film producer born in 1965. His focal point of interest lies in the intersectionality of art forms, especially in the relationship of music and moving pictures. He heads the filmmusic festival and conference Soundtrack_Cologne that he founded in 2004 – with 850 accreditations Europe’s leading filmmusic industry event – as well as Soundtrack_Zurich since 2020. Parallel from 2014-2019 he was festivaldirector of Braunschweig International Filmfestival that grew to 28.000 admissions under his direction.

Aust has worked in the film industry for more than 25 years with producer credits for 21 feature films and feature-length documentaries, including 101 Reykjavik, Stumbling Block, Low Lights, Parallax Sounds Chicago, Eva Hesse and The Sound of Cologne, focusing on music and art. His directorial debut Can and Me, co-produced by WDR, hit the cinemas and film festivals in spring 2023. 

Michael curates exhibitions and festivals e.g. DuKunst Media Art Festival 1992, Klangvisionen sound art exhibition 1994, StadtKlangNetz conference on cultural education 2007-2014, European Film Music Day at Cannes Film Festival 2009-2016, the highly successful The Art of Pop Video exhibition (MAKK Cologne 2011, Odessa Art Center 2012, Liverpool FACT 2013), Next Level Conference on video games 2012, PLAY!CGN exhibition and conference on video games in art 2013, Digital Distribution conference 2014, BIFF Film Criticism LAB: on the Future of Film Criticism 2015, Hostile Sisters - Interdependencies of Theatre and Film conference 2016, FxM Film meets Music Festival 2018+19. His latest project is the 30-month Re-Educating Digitisation funded by Erasmus+.

He is a voting member of the GERMAN FILM ACADEMY, FILMBÜRO NW and of the WORLD SOUNDTRACK ACADEMY and Board Member of KINO AKTIV, ON NEUE MUSIK KÖLN and MUSIC FILM FESTIVAL NETWORK. He is Managing Director, Owner and Producer at TELEVISOR TROIKA GMBH, a Cologne-based company established in 1993 for film production, art events and public relations in arts.

Yevgeni Birkhoff

Composer, Music Producer, Sound Designer

Yevgeni Birkhoff is a composer, music producer, and sound designer working across media productions, international large-scale events, song production, and acoustic sound art. His musical language ranges from authentic EDM productions and Musique Concrète soundscapes to cinematic orchestral scores.

Over the course of his career, Birkhoff has created tailored music and sound design for internationally renowned brands and organizations, including Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Electronic Arts, the Chinese Ministry of Tourism, and Emaar Properties. His sound installations have been exhibited at prestigious institutions worldwide, including the German Rock and Pop Museum in Gronau, Mann’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, and the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.

In 2010, Birkhoff received the Peer Raben Award at SoundTrack_Cologne for Best Music in a Short Film. In addition, numerous large-scale events featuring his music have received international recognition within the event industry, including the BrandEx Award (2019), the German Design Award (2016), and The Special Event Gala Award (2015).

In recent years, Birkhoff has expanded his artistic and technological spectrum into the fields of game audio and artificial intelligence. He regularly gives lectures and workshops, sharing his expertise and innovative perspectives on the application of these technologies in music and audio post-production. Since 2025, he has served as Advisor on Artificial Intelligence to the Executive Board of the State Music Council of North Rhine-Westphalia (Landesmusikrat NRW).

Philipp Bojahr

Executive director of the NRW K3 AI.Art.Culture Competence Network.

Dr. Philipp Bojahr is the designated executive director of the NRW K3 AI.Art.Culture Competence Network. As a hub for artificial intelligence in art and culture in North Rhine-Westphalia, K3 will bring together networking, knowledge transfer, and continuing education and residency programs for artists and cultural professionals. Previously, from 2022 to 2026, he worked on the “New Media in Museums” tandem position to develop innovative approaches to cultural education: He led the Research & Digital Transformation department at the Siegerlandmuseum in Siegen while also conducting research in this field as a postdoctoral fellow at the Cologne Game Lab at the Technical University of Cologne, participating in various national and international projects.

He studied media studies and media culture at the University of Siegen and received his Ph.D. from the University of Cologne in 2019 with a dissertation on art, technology, and computer game theory.

Varun Desai

Multidisciplinary artist

Varun Desai is a multidisciplinary artist and computer engineer with two decades of experience operating at the intersection of technology, interactive design, and immersive sound art. His research-driven practice investigates how technological advancements reshape human sensory perception, utilizing custom-built electronics, real-time code-based visualizations, and responsive installations to interrogate the boundaries between physical and digital spaces.

As a foundational figure in India's experimental music and digital art landscapes, Desai has championed contemporary new media practices in Kolkata and founded Synthfarm, a premier research and residency platform dedicated to modular synthesis, instrument design, and music production. Additionally, his role as director of the long-running Kolkata Jazzfest bridges global cultural traditions, fostering vital cross-disciplinary and international collaboration.

Desai’s creative methodology is anchored by a rigorous technical framework in computer engineering, software architecture, and creative coding. His artistic projects frequently leverage these skills to build highly responsive, stable cyber-physical environments, as seen in his immersive digital artwork created for Apple, his custom hardware and DIY synthesizers and his fine art pieces showcased at the historic Dhoomimal Gallery. This is further exemplified in his solo exhibition Spectre at Experimenter, which explored wave mechanics, surveillance, and multi-channel sound systems. A defining milestone of his instrument design research is Switched on India, a performance-lecture project centered around his reconstruction of the pioneering 1969 National Institute of Design (NID) Moog synthesizer. Continuing to push the boundaries of how electronic sound is generated, Desai integrates algorithmic logic into his creative practice by exploring both ends of the modern compute spectrum. His current interactive experiments range from lightweight AI sequence patches deployed on low-power edge microcontrollers to complex, web-based deep learning architectures.

Dr. S. Dennis Engbrink, LL.M.

Lawyer

Dr. S. Dennis Engbrink, LL.M. is Head of Media & Entertainment at ZIRNGIBL Rechtsanwälte in Berlin. He specializes in intellectual property, media and entertainment law. He advises media, technology and creative industry clients, including music and film businesses, producers, composers, publishers, agencies and promoters. One focus of his practice is AI and its legal implications for copyright, licensing and regulatory compliance. His academic and professional background includes extended international experience in Tokyo, Brussels, Amsterdam and Wellington. As a frequent speaker on AI, IP and media law, and through his involvement in the International Association of Entertainment Lawyers (IAEL), he contributes actively to international debates on the legal implications of emerging technologies for the creative industries.

Nicole Picazo

Composer

Influenced by her musical family, Nicole always had an interest in music. She began her musical journey by studying film composition at Berklee Online, where she was mentored by renowned industry professionals Enrique González Müller, Pinar Toprak, and Brad Hatfield.

Her academic pursuits led her to Fine Arts School in Mexico City in 2016, where she sharpened her skills in Composition and Music Innovation. This educational foundation, coupled with her professional experiences, paved the way for collaborations with renowned composers Harry Gregson-Williams, Justin Burnett, and Aman Moroney.

Nicole is a versatile producer, orchestrator, and arranger who has collaborated with a diverse selection of artists, showcasing her adaptability and creative range. Among many, she's worked with Major Seven, Austin Farwell, The Local Train, Duncan Daniels, PaperBoy, Sleep Theory Fabe, Tripoli and Baumarius.

Currently, Nicole serves as the Executive Producer and Project Manager for orchestra sessions at MUSIVERSAL. In this capacity, she oversees a multitude of projects, including managing universities’ orchestral recording sessions. Nicole's unwavering commitment to music production, meticulous attention to detail, and ability to cultivate creative collaborations and manage large-scale projects make her an invaluable asset to any recording endeavor.

Anna Schürmer

Anna Schürmer has been the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Professor at the Free University of Berlin since 2026; prior to that, she was a junior professor of musicology at the Cologne University of Music and Dance from 2023.

In her academic work, she adopts interdisciplinary perspectives in the context of ‘music and media’ (Sound Studies). On a discursive level, she focuses on intersectional and power-critical approaches in music and sound research (Queer Musicology), speculative forms of music-related knowledge production (Zukunft(s)Musik: Musicking Future – Futuring Music), and auditory perspectives in artistic research (Acoustic Research).

She pays particular attention to new and electronic (club) music. Outside academia, *anna also works as a music journalist: she presents programmes, gives talks and publishes regularly in various print, radio and online media. Further information: www.interpolationen.de

Maja Stark

Project Manager

Maja Stark joined K3 KI.Kunst.Kultur on 1 July 2026 as Network and Programme Manager. Alongside this role, she conceives and coordinates EU-funded programmes at the intersection of art, culture, and new technologies at HTW Berlin, including the AURORA XR School for Artists (2023–2025) and the IUNO – Innovation Centre for Intelligent and Immersive Technologies in the Independent Arts and Culture Scene (since 2026). In 2023, she worked as a Project Manager at BGZ — Berliner Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit. Following studies in Art History and French in Berlin and Paris, and a one-year traineeship at Deutscher Kunstverlag, she served from 2015 to 2018 as Publication Manager at the interdisciplinary Cluster of Excellence Image Knowledge Gestaltung at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. From 2017 to 2020, she complemented her professional practice by attending selected seminars in Media and Applied Computer Science.

Prof. Dr. Francisco Tigre-Moura

Academic, Researcher

Francisco Tigre Moura is a Professor of Marketing at IU International University of Applied Sciences. He holds a PhD in Marketing from the University of Otago (New Zealand) and has spent the last decade researching human response to artificial creativity. He is the editor of two books on the intersection of AI and creativity, and is currently editing a third one on AI and the abundance of creative content. He also has several publications in scientific journals, academic conferences and book chapters on AI and creativity and hosts a Podcast named AI & Creativity. You can find more about his work at: liveinnovation.org

Rita Tulha

Music Producer

Rita’s passion for music was ignited from very early on and she’s become a self-taught musician producing music on a daily basis. Eventually, she got her formal music training in Lisbon which led her to an internship in Berlin where she got hands-on experience in recording music and client management in a professional environment. She has extensive experience producing exceptional on-site and remote orchestral sessions in major music cities worldwide, including London, Lisbon, Prague, Budapest, and Sydney. Since joining MUSIVERSAL in September 2018, she has been instrumental in building and expanding the orchestral department.

Her unique blend of artistic sensibility and technical proficiency allows her to seamlessly transition between intimate singer-songwriter tracks and large-scale cinematic scores for film, TV, and video games.

As producer, she has collaborated with acclaimed composer Harry Gregson-Williams and has worked on a wide range of Hollywood films, NETFLIX productions, and international commercials.

Throughout her many years of remote recording sessions, Rita has produced orchestral recordings for Sissel's Christmas EP, and the band 49 Winchester. In collaboration with Nashville producer David Kalmusky, she produced exceptional orchestral recordings for songs like Jesu Bambino / O Holy Night and Joy to the World by Kevin Jonas Sr; and Words on four-time Grammy-nominated album Remember Her Name by Mickey Guyton.

She also hosted the soundtrack string recording for Marco Beltrami's action movie Silent Night, as well as the soundtrack for Play 'n Go's Hugo Legacy.

With over seven years of orchestral recording experience, Rita oversees every aspect of the production process, ensuring that each project meets the highest standards. Her dedication to quality and attention to detail are evident in her work.

Martin Villiger

Composer, focused on film music

Martin Villiger has scored more documentary films than any other Swiss composer of his generation. He has written music for more than 140 films and series, 50 advertising campaigns and over 500 series episodes. And an archive of more than 2,000 of his pieces lives in the internal library of Swiss television.

He has a habit of being first. With the DVD The Voyage (2004) he was one of the first composers in Switzerland to score consistently in 5.1 surround. Today he works in Dolby Atmos and explores where human creativity meets AI. As a lecturer at the University of the arts Zurich he mentors students on their way to become film composers.

Beyond film, Martin develops sonic identities for companies and also broadcast series. Some of his advertising campaigns feature names like Apple, Samsung, Swisscom, Salt, Snickers and Rega, alongside film and series work for Netflix and SRF. On stage, he founded the Culture Clash concerts in 2022 and has performed his Emotional Composing format since 2006 - composing live in the moment, shaped by the audience in real time.

BLICK called him "the Swiss Hans Zimmer.”