Helge Borgarts

Helge Borgarts is a German music composer and producer for film, television and games. 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 works as a freelancing composer, producer and lecturer. 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, Stratotainmentor 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 productions was the highly acclaimed game The Surge – The Good, the Bad and the Augmented.

Helge works in Mülheim an der Ruhr and Cologne.

Milena Fessmann

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.

Martin Häne

Before becoming a music publisher, Martin Häne worked for 10+ years as composer for all major and various independent production music companies. His credits include Fack ju Göhte 2, Melrose Place, Bring it on (Universal), various Lion's Gate Films (Warrior, Frankenhood) as well as Commercials and TV Series on networks such as ABC, NBC, CW TV, among others.

Nowadays he builds & manages several music library labels, including Nuvotone, consisting of 3 labels and distributed globally by market leader Universal / UPPM, and Catapult, distributed individually per territory.

His mission is simple: To offer high-quality production music for the media industry, ranging from labels with traditional genres to catalogs with unique boutique-made sounds.

Christian Hein

Chris Hein is a sample library developer, composer and producer. He started his career in 1986 with the Commodore C64 computer. In 1988 he produced his first sample library „Studio-Samples“ for Metra Sound. During the 90s, Chris worked as composer and producer in his own studio. He produced countless film scores, pop- and orchestral productions, most of then exclusively with virtual instruments.

One highlight was the music for the musical show Der Zauberwald which was completely made with samples and reached 3 mio. guests. Since 2005 he recorded more than 500.000 samples for his collection of „Chris Hein - Virtual Instruments“.

Chris Kennedy

Chris Kennedy is the founder/director of Rident Royalties, an agency dedicated to identifying and recovering unclaimed neighboring rights royalty income. 

Specializing in collections for media composers/artists, Rident aims to fill the gaps in neighboring rights coverage created by varying policies on audiovisual remuneration amongst territories, which are often less straightforward than the policies governing radio remuneration. By providing direct-to-source collections in every major territory internationally, Rident ensures enhanced transparency into earnings and visibility into unclaimed funds.

Drawing on prior employment experience at a leading performance rights organization, Kennedy aims to bring increased transparency into industry’s estimated $2.5 billion royalty black box.

Maxime Luft

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.

Lukas Middelmann

Lukas Middelmann – Industry Relations & Career Coach at SAE Institute Cologne – connects the dots between SAE students and alumni and the media industry, helping students to start their own career. Lukas also manages the SAE Alumni chapter Cologne and has become a key player in organizing the SAE Convention for the last three years. 

Lukas has and still is working as a freelance sound engineer, primarily for live sound. He worked with artists like Patricia Kelly, Shadmehr Aghilli, Sea + Air, and many more in over 15 countries worldwide. Additionally he worked as a music producer, composer and voiceover artist for several projects. In his free time he loves to sing, play guitar and enjoys the quietness in the countryside with his family.

Sebastian Mönch

After studying music production, film sound and interactive music, Sebastian Mönch started as a freelancer for sound design and composition for games. He is active for Steinberg as a Senior Product Specialist International since 2009. There, he teaches video game developers, sound engineers and broadcasting company staff. He is a passionate player himself and teaches Game Audio at SAE Hamburg.

Sebastian Parche

Born in Thuringia, Sebastian Parche began scoring at the age of 26. Before he graduated at ArtEZ hogeschool voor de kunsten in Arnhem Netherlands (M.M.), he wrote music for numerous documentaries such as Eisbär, Affe & Co., Die großen Schlachten. After his study, for example, he scored Artisten im Wind and Darkwoods, which were recorded in cooperation with the Prague FILMharmonic Orchestra. He founded the boutique library Music Sculptor together with Anselm Kreuzer in 2017 – a production music company passionately specialising in music for documentaries, television, broadcast and promos.

Chandler Poling

Chandler Poling is the Co-Founder and President of White Bear PR, a Public Relations firm specializing in Publicity for Composers, Music Supervisors, and Film & Music Festivals around the world. Chandler has run successful Oscar, Golden Globe, Grammy, BAFTA and Emmy campaigns securing nominations and wins for his clients. His clients have been featured in national and international publications, such as Time Magazine, Vanity Fair, New York Times, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, The Guardian, LA Times, and Rolling Stone Magazine to name just a few. He created the first ever composer-focused panel at Comic-Con San Diego, the World’s Largest Pop Culture Convention. These panels are now an ongoing tradition – a platform for composers to discuss their craft and meet their fans. In addition to producing and moderating panels, Chandler has been invited to give lectures on PR for Composers at Berklee College of Music, Royal College of Music, USC, Krakow Film Music Festival, SoundTrack_Cologne, the World Soundtrack Awards Industry Days, and others.

Lolita Ritmanis

Lolita Ritmanis is an Emmy award winning composer. She has been nominated 10 times, and won the coveted statue in 2002 for her work on the Warner Bros. series Batman Beyond.

Recent career highlights include: scoring the critically acclaimed Justice League: Fatal Five, Wild DaZe-documentary (featuring Jane Goodall), as well as continued work on fan-favorite productions: Marvel Rising (Marvel), and Young Justice (WarnerBros). Other select credits include: The Killing Joke (starring Mark Hamill as the voice of The Joker), Justice League (the theme, composed by Lolita, received a Primetime Emmy nomination), Teen Titans, Ben 10, Wacky Races, Spectacular Spider-Man, Batman: The Animated Series, as well as composing score and songs for the Primetime Emmy nominated musical Batman: The Brave and the Bold: Mayhem of the Music Meister (starring Neil Patrick Harris).

Lolita’s concert works, as well as four original musicals have been performed throughout the US, Canada, Europe, Taiwan and Australia. Her music has been performed at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York City, The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., The Krakow International Film Music Festival, Fimucité International Film Music Festival in Tenerife, Canary Islands, and Playfest in Ubeda, Spain.

Early in her career, Lolita learned from the masters while working for such composing greats as Michael Kamen, Basil Poledouris, Mark Snow and Shirley Walker, among many others. Prior to focusing her career on composition, Lolita was an orchestrator on over 100 films, mini-series and television programs including Lethal Weapon 4, X-Files Movie, and Robin Hood-Prince of Thieves.

Lolita is one of the founders of the Alliance for Women Film Composers, serving as president 2016-2018, and a founding member of Dynamic Music Partners. On May 9th, 2018 Lolita was honored with the BMI Champion Award.

Robert Williams

Mr. Williams is a U.S.-qualified entertainment lawyer with over 14 years of deal-making experience, ten of which were with leading global law firms. He advises each step of the motion picture production process, from development to financial structuring of production to distribution and licensing. Mr. Williams further advises on soundtrack album agreements, music administration and co-publishing deals, recording and synchronization licenses, master licenses and composer agreements. 

His clients include production companies, film funds, distributors, composers and writers. Mr. Williams has been accorded credit for his legal work on many film productions, most recently The Wife starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce.