Speakers

Christopher Young

Composer

One of the foremost talents in film music today, Golden Globe & two-time Emmy nominated composer Christopher Young has scored an impressive number of features in virtually every genre, all with strikingly original music. Christopher was honored to be the recipient of several awards including The Richard Kirk Award for Outstanding Career Achievement from BMI and was named #1 Greatest Horror Film Composer Of All Time by BBC Music Magazine. In 2023, Young was bestowed the high honor of being “Composer Of The Year” by the International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) as well as many other prestigious awards from the IFMCA over the years. In 2020, the Young scored film Sinister (Blumhouse), for director Scott Derrickson, was ranked as the scariest movie of all time.

Most recently Young has teamed up with the master of horror, Guillermo del Toro, on his Cabinet Of Curiosities series for NETFLIX. And APPLE TV+ has Chris scoring their exciting new series, Echo 3. Coming in 2022 are two studio features Abyzou & The Piper. Young had a box-office hit in 2019 with Pet Sematary for PARAMOUNT Pictures. The 2021 crime/thriller The Empty Man for 20th Century Fox/Studios let Young experiment with different musical colors to create a gritty musical landscape. Young retimed with legendary director Sam Raimi on his 50 States Of Fright series on the brand new streaming service, QUIBI. These along with over 160 more films embody the work of this prolific composer.

Other notable credits include, the spine-tingling Hellraiser, which showcased the composer’s seminal upbringing in horror; the new-techno sound of Swordfish displays his versatility; the resonant, genuine Celtic sounds of The Shipping News display his attention to detail; to the heart-pounding rhythms of Spider-Man 3 are all evidence of his willingness to experiment. Born in Red Bank, New Jersey (birthplace of Count Basie), Young graduated from Massachusetts Hampshire college with a BA in music, and did post-graduate work at North Texas State University before moving to Los Angeles in 1980. At the time, Young was a jazz drummer, a precursor to some of the edgier scores he would later complete. Soon, an introduction to esteemed composer Bernard Herrmann’s movie scores (Vertigo, Citizen Kane) opened up a new world for Young, who was unfamiliar with film scoring. “Here was someone doing everything I wanted to do. I fell in love with the music before I realized that it was written for movies”, said Young.

Though Young had built a solid reputation scoring horror and science fiction pictures, Director Jon Amiel recognized that the composer’s talent transcended genre. Amiel entrusted Young to score WARNER BROS.’ dramatic thriller, Copycat. The film and score received critical-acclaim and Amiel requested the composer for his follow-up film, the Bill Murray comedy, The Man Who Knew Too Little. Young proved that he could not be pigeonholed by genre. The professional kinship ensued, and they subsequently would work together on the FOX feature, Entrapment and later, The Core.

Young had established himself as working with the brightest and most-talented directors. Sam Raimi hired Young to score his high profile film The Gift. The relationship would continue to include additional music on Spider-Man 2, scoring The Grudge and The Grudge 2 and scoring Spider-Man 3. Young continued his successful working relationship with Raimi more recently on the thriller Drag Me to Hell.

Christopher Young says he has been blessed with his career so he gives back to the film music community. He has taught a film scoring class at USC for over ten years, a two-term past president of The Film Music Society, and the president of the Madrid Film Music Festival in Spain.

Panu Aaltio

Film Composer

Panu Aaltio is a film composer based in Helsinki and Los Angeles. He has scored more than 30 feature films, along with television series, video games, and a full-length ballet for the Finnish National Opera.

He is the only composer to have won the International Film Music Critics Association's Best Documentary Score award for every film of a trilogy: Tale of a Forest (2013), Tale of a Lake (2017), and Tale of the Sleeping Giants (2022). Tale of a Lake also brought him a Jussi, the Finnish Oscar. In 2022 he was nominated for IFMCA Composer of the Year alongside Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, and in 2026 he received the HARPA Nordic Film Composers Award for the Netflix film Little Siberia.

Recent work includes Little Siberia (NETFLIX), 5000 Blankets (SONY Pictures), and Super Furball and the Lying Squirrel. He studied Music Technology at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television at USC in Los Angeles.

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.

Roman Beilharz

Composer, Multi-Instrumentalist, Educator

Roman Beilharz began his career as a jazz drummer and, even as a teenager, accompanied internationally renowned soloists such as Randy Brecker, Albert Mangelsdorff, and Roger Cicero. To put his skills as a multi-instrumentalist and composer to use, he shifted his professional focus increasingly toward the production of TV, film, and theater music after completing his studies at the Cologne College of Music, which earned him various awards at film festivals. 

With well over 30 years of experience as an educator in the field of media music (Institute of Music at the University of Kassel, HfMDK Frankfurt am Main) and as CEO of his own high-end recording studio UVASONAR, he emerged as the ideal candidate for the position of European Director of the IMMSANE network, which is meeting annually at SC. With his wide-ranging wealth of knowledge and experience as a multi-instrumentalist, composer, sound engineer, and media producer, Roman Beilharz embodies stylistic and media crossover like no other.

Helge Borgarts

Composer, Audio Director

Boxed Ape

Composers for Video Games

Boxed Ape (Alistair Kerley & Frankie Harper) are a London-based composer duo specializing in music for video games and moving images. Their most recent project, The Casting of Frank Stone, a narrative horror title from SUPERMASSIVE GAMES, which released on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, showcasing their signature blend of atmospheric tension and immersive storytelling.

Renowned for their distinctive approach to both interactive and linear experiences, Boxed Ape has earned a reputation for delivering compelling and versatile musical worlds. Their work spans expansive hybrid orchestral scores for major AAA titles to bespoke soundtracks for boutique indie projects, with expertise in production, orchestration, recording, mixing, music design, and implementation.

Other notable projects include scoring Horizon Call of the Mountain (2023), the multi-award-winning, BAFTA-nominated PSVR2 launch title from FIRESPRITE and GUERILLA; Beyond a Steel Sky (2020) by REVOLUTION SOFTWARE; and Corruption 2029 (2020) and Miasma Chronicles (2023) from THE BEARDED LADIES. Their collaborative style blends diverse musical sensibilities with a strong commitment to originality and quality.

Nainita Desai

Composer

Emmy-winning composer Nainita Desai is a leading voice in contemporary screen music, known for bold and emotionally immersive scores across film, television and video games. Recent credits include the DISNEY+/AMC fantasy adventure Nautilus, and Bafta and Emmy nominated DISNEY+ wildlife series Secrets of the Penguins. Her work in interactive storytelling, includes the BAFTA-winning games Immortality, Telling Lies, Call of Duty and EA Originals’ Tales of Kenzera: Zau as well as upcoming AAA games, landmark wildlife series for BBC1 and premium series and films for NETFLIX and NAT GEO.

Nainita won an Emmy for The Reason I Jump and has received honours from the RTS, IFMCA, ASCAP, SCL and World Soundtrack Awards, alongside nominations for the Ivors, Critics Choice, G.A.N.G, MPSE and Cinema Eye Honors awards. Her acclaimed documentary work includes Bafta and Cannes-winning For Sama, The Deepest Breath, Sundance-winning Nocturnes and The Reason I Jump, and NETFLIX´s 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible, while her scripted series credits also include Sky’s comedy drama Funny Woman, ITV crime-drama The Tower, and BBC One thriller Crossfire.

Alongside her screen work, she is an active advocate for composers and serves on committees for organisations including the Ivors Academy, BAFTA and AMPAS.

Maclaine Diemer

Composer

After graduating from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, he joined the rock and roll circus and hit the road, climbing speaker towers and playing to sold out crowds across the U.S. and Canada with several bands before entering the game industry. Now, with 18 years of experience in games, he has worked on some of the highest profile titles across PC and multiple game console generations. In 2023 and 2024, Maclaine was nominated for the Game Music Award at the prestigious World Soundtrack Awards, and in 2025 he was nominated for Best Original Score for Interactive Media by the prestigious Society of Composers and Lyricists.

Dr. Yati Durant

Composer, Lecturer, Musician

Dr. 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 PhD in Composition from the University of Edinburgh along with a prestigious Konzertexam Meisterklasse in composition under the composer Krzysztof Meyer at the State Conservatory of Music in Cologne, Germany, and 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 Panorama 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 RECRODS, 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. He was Orchestra Mentor-in-residence for the WDR Funkhausorchester Köln from 2021 - 2023, and currently composes, performs and directs the MSCN Film Music Festivals Academy at film music festivals worldwide.

André Feldhaus

Film Music Composer

Simon Goff

Composer, producer, artist

Simon Goff is a British composer, producer and artist based in Berlin.

Released in 2021, Goff’s debut solo album Vale is a fusion of his classical background with fearless electronic experimentation, layered with grounded melodies, and described by The Quietus as, "a statement of both awe and intent... it's remarkable that the album marks his debut outing on his own terms". 2023’s sophomore album, Spark Like Living Mothers, is a six-track collection of immersive, textural and intuitive electronica, and a testament to his multifaceted practice.

His original scores for television include the BAFTA nominated drama series The Gold (BBC / PARAMOUNT+), starring Jack Lowden, Hugh Bonneville, Sean Harris and Dominic Cooper, and Simon is currently working on the second season of the production, as well as the forthcoming CANAL+ series Dcera Národa (Daughter of the Nation). In film, Goff scored the 2023 independent Czech feature We Have Never Been Modern for which he was nominated for Best Score at the Czech Lion Awards. More recently, he composed for Vlny (Waves) which documents the role of Czech radio during the Prague Spring of the 60s, and which saw Simon work with the Czech National Radio Orchestra on the soundtrack.

He has worked with some of the world's most acclaimed musicians as a collaborator and a sound engineer including Hildur Guðnadóar on Joker and Chernobyl, both of which earned him Grammy Awards, as well as Jóhann Jóhansson and Apparat.

A classically trained violinist, Goff has performed internationally with the likes of Peter Broderick, Federico Albanese and Xiu Xiu and has performed at Funkhaus, Berlin, the South Bank Centre, London, Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, and CTM Festival in Berlin. His live performances have cemented his reputation as an innovator of the genre. Layering performance samples of electronics and live violin, he creates a textured and epic expansion of his recorded works.

"Goff is expert at exploring the interface between organic, analogue tactility and the hinterland of treated, synthetic sound." Loud & Quiet

Bob Humid

Composer, Sound Designer, DJ, Label Manager, Music Journalist

Bob Humid (actual name: Robert Edwin Feuchtl Mato) is a restless musician & DJ, a meticulous producer of experimental radio plays and indie film soundtracks, a sound designer, music journalist, label manager (Serve & Destroy Records) and a mixing- and mastering studio-operator routed in Cologne's electronic music scene. His musical creations, ranging from UK-influenced electronic breakbeats to valiant electronica, occasionally high-five the realms of club music, techno and pop. He was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, but grew up most of the time in Germany, where he was an originator of numerous activities in the City´s alternative underground music scene starting in 1989 as co-founder and member of the german Elektro/EBM-group Der Liederkranz. In addition to testing pro audio equipment as a tech editor for such mags as GROOVE, SOUND & RECORDING and KEYBOARDS, he is also known to be an acribic mixing-engineer, an obsessive remixer and a producer with a violent heart for detail and object-based hyperediting. In 2011, he won first prize for the song Festung Europa at the SPEX protest song competition alongside the Leipzig-based synth-pop band Brockdorff Klangabor, and as a result even made it onto The Guardian’s list of the world’s best songs on the subject of refugees. Currently he is alo organising the cologne-based GMCC (Game Music Composer Concerts) along with visual artist Uli Sigg.

Ulla Kösterke

Sound Mixer

In 1983 Ulla Kösterke started her film studies at German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB). There she spezialized in sound. Before she graduated in Journalism, German Literature and Sociology from the Freie Universität Berlin. (FU Berlin). Since 1989 she worked as Production Sound Mixer on Feature Films and Documentaries, for Cinema and TV and shot more than hundred films all over the world. Many of them won national and international awards.

Ulla Kösterke is teaching Filmsound at German Film and Television Academy (DFFB) and Met Film School Berlin.

She is member of German Film Academy e.V., ProQuote Film and Filmtonfrauen e.V.

Nathan Larson

Composer

Nathan Larson cut his teeth in the DC punk scene of the 1980s with the seminal hardcore band Swiz. After relocating to New York City in 1989, Nathan joined Shudder To Think, who jumped from DISCHORD Records to EPIC in 1992 and enjoyed a wild run of touring (opening for Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, Fugazi, Smashing Pumpkins as well as Lolapalooza 1994) and recording (1994s Pony Express Record is experiencing a reassessment, having recently gotten a coveted 9.1 score from Pitchfork), and 1997’s First Love Last Rites included collaborations with buddy Jeff Buckley, Liz Phair, X’s John Doe, Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander, and soon to be wife Nina Persson of the Cardigans. 

After a solo album (1999’s Jealous God) Larson dug into film scoring in earnest. To date Larson has made music for upwards of 70 films, documentaries and TV series, including titles like Boys Don´t Cry Todd Solondz’s Palindromes and Storytelling, Luka Moodysson's Lilja-4-Ever, The Messenger, Stephen Frears Dirty Pretty Things, Margin Call and The Skeleton Twins. Recent projects include HBO’s The Lion Queen. 

In 2010, Nathan learned to meditate in the mantra-based Vedic tradition, and would become a teacher of this modality in 2021. 

In 2015 Nathan, wife Nina Persson and son Nils moved back to Nina’s native Sweden, where Nathan co-developed the Lumen Project a format that re-contextualized concert into ritual. Since 2018 Lumen Project has held events in Eric Ericson Hall in Stockholm, a decommissioned church on the Skeppsholmen island in the middle of Stockholm. Inspired by LaMonte Young and Marian Zazella's Dream House, Lumen Project offers a unique, non-religious format where art, music and reflection merge into transformative experiences. 

We create durational concerts of continuous sound, with seamless transitions, immersive lights and visuals, no stage, no applause, with audience members free to lie down, rest or move. 

LUMEN PROJECT began operating internationally as well, present in Beirut, Lebanon and Husavik Iceland. 

In 2025 Larson and family returned to New York City. Now the Lumen Project format enters a new chapter as Lumenyc , in conjunction with SOS. 

He continues his work in film. Shudder to Think is preparing a new album for early ’27 release, and will be touring extensively beginning Fall 2026. 

Billie Mind

Sound Designer, Supervising Sound Editor, Film Editor

Billie Mind is a sound designer, supervising sound editor, and motion picture editor working across fiction and documentary. After studying Sound Engineering in London and working in multidisciplinary contexts across art, music, and culture, they focus on editing and sound design for both documentary and fiction films. They are currently developing their directorial project The Hum.

Their work includes Sound of Falling (2025, Cannes Competition, Jury Prize, Germany’s official submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature), for which they received the ICS Award for Best Editing, as well as nominations for the MPSE Award and the German Film Award for Best Sound, and the Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival for Best Sound. Further credits include We Might as Well Be Dead (2022, Berlinale, Tribeca winner), I Spy With My Little Eye (Tribeca Competition), and Im Stillen laut (DOK Leipzig, Duisburger Filmwoche). For Add your heroine, they received the Amadeu Antonio Award together with Evelyn Rack.

They are an alumna of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, the Deutschlandstipendium, and a scholarship holder of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes). In 2026, they were a mentor at Berlinale Talents and served on the jury of the 39th Peace Film Award at the Berlinale.
Billie Mind is a member of the European Film Academy (EFA), Filmtonfrauen e.V., and the German Film Academy.

Evelyn Rack

Film Editor

Evelyn Rack is a film editor working across fiction and documentary.
Most recently, she edited Sound of Falling, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and received the Jury Prize. The film was selected as Germany’s official submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature. Her editing was nominated for the German Film Award for Best Editing, and she received the ICS Award for Best Editing.

Her work includes I Spy With My Little Eye, which premiered in the International Narrative Competition at the Tribeca Film Festival, and Ararat, which earned her a nomination for the Heiner Carow Prize for Best Editing at the Berlinale. Further credits include We Might as Well Be Dead (Berlinale, Tribeca Film Festival), WO/MEN (Astra Film Festival, DOK Leipzig, Thessaloniki Film Festival), and Drifter (Berlinale).
Beyond film, she received the Amadeu Antonio Prize for the interactive exhibition Add your heroine. The installation Quítame la sal de encima, created in collaboration with director Kirstin Schmitt, was presented at the Louvre.

Evelyn is an alumna of Berlinale Talents and serves regularly on juries, most recently for Edimotion and British Shorts.
She is based in Germany and holds a master’s degree in editing from the Film University Babelsberg. She is a member of the European Film Academy (EFA), the German Film Academy, the BFS (German Editors’ Association), and British Film Editors (BFE).

Sarah Schygulla

Author, Presenter, Digital Marketing Specialist

After completing a Drama degree and a joint Bachelor's degree in Romance Languages, Literature, and Linguistics and Asian Literature and Societies, Sarah completed a master's degree in Creative Writing in Edinburgh in 2018.

Sarah then worked as a junior curator for SoundTrack_Cologne before joining, among others, the UK branch of HACHETTE Publishing as a Digital Marketing Specialist.

She writes novels and screenplays, of which her scripts for the documentaries The Sound of Cologne and Can and Me were released in 2023. In addition, Sarah is also a presenter for events and advises SoundTrack_Cologne as a consultant for film, TV series, video games, and pop culture.

Mirjam Skal

Composer

Linda Verweyen

Director

Linda Verweyen is a director of docu-fictional films, specializing in social change processes driven by art. She developed the production concept of “Participatory Docufiction,” through which she raises questions as who tells the stories about marginalized communities in the film industry. Through this format, she actively facilitates the political and artistic participation of stigmatized individuals within a professional cinematic framework. She received filmawards internationally for her short films Jonna & Louis and Halima – How to Stay Strong.

Jenny Winter

Sound Designer, mixing engineer, songwriter

Jenny Winter is a German sound designer, mixing engineer and songwriter experienced in sensitive, socially critical projects. With her intimate and honest style, she builds an emotional bridge between complex stories and their audience. Her work has earned growing recognition, including the European Talent Award at the SoundTrack_Cologne congress 2024 and as part of the Best Medium-Length Movie at the Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis 2023. Away from the studio, she spends time in nature and is eagerly learning Norwegian.

Zanshin

Multi-faceted artist

Zanshin is a multi-faceted artist. His interest in sound sculpting and synthesis - with attention to detail - and his generally wide-angled approach to electronic music is well reflected in productions like his recent albums In Any Case By Any Chance and The Subject Matters on AFFINE Records. They range from powerful uptempo techno-infused stompers to meditative, introspective improvised pieces.

Zanshin - a term from Japanese martial arts meaning "undirected attention" - likes to fit into manifold settings when playing his music live, giving the audience either a chance to dance ecstatically or to listen with intent. But don't be fooled by the experimental nature of his releases, when Zanshin enters the DJ booth, he is well known for making the crowd rave to his sets that can incorporate any form of energetic dance music like House and Techno from all eras or more polyrhythmic affairs from the Bass music and Jungle realm.

Zanshin has been performing live and releasing forward thinking and funked up House Music internationally also as a part of Ogris Debris on labels like COMPOST BLACK, NERVOUS RECORDS and INFINÉ for many years. And last but not least his interest in the audiovisuals arts has led him to numerous media festivals, presenting immersive and challenging performances and installations as one half of the widely respected artist duo Depart or as a solo artist, showing algorithmically driven sound installations.