Guest Speakers Sony Microsoft Bungie 

Chance Thomas was the first videogame composer to score an Academy Award™ winning film and log more than one million downloads of his game music.  He produced one of the first live orchestral scores in videogames.  He also released one of the first commercially successful game soundtracks in America.

Chance’s credits include such household names as Lord of the Rings, X-Men, King Kong, Marvel, and the upcoming Avatar by Titanic director James Cameron.  His projects are major award winners, including Oscar™, Emmy™, GANG™, Addy™, Telly™, Aurora™, IGN, SoundtrackNet, Gamers Choice and others.

In the late 1990’s, Chance led the movement which first brought game music into the Grammy Awards™.  He helped found the Game Audio Network Guild, and is a former Chair of the Music and Sound Peer Committees for the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.

Chance is currently Principal Composer for the HUGEsound Network (www.HUGEsound.com).   He serves on the Board of Directors for the Game Audio Network Guild, and is on the Audio Advisory Board of the San Francisco Game Developers Conference.

Paul has also studied music for twenty-five years, with a focus on jazz studies and classical/orchestral music. He has enjoyed a longstanding career as a performer, leading his ensembles at venues across the United States, Southeast Asia, Europe, and Brazil. He has performed and recorded with world-renowned jazz musicians including Clark Terry, George Russell, Eric Marienthal, Bob Moses, Jimmy Giuffre, Gene Bertoncini, Mick Goodrick, John Abercrombie, Tim Miller, Bevan Manson, John McNeil, and Rick DiMuzio.

Paul holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees with highest distinction from the world-renowned New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He is a member of the International Game Developers Association, The Music Educators National Conference, BMI, The Recording Academy P&E Wing Advisory Council, and the Game Audio Network Guild.

Kane Minkus: Managing Partner, Somatone Interactive Audio (SF only)

Kane Minkus is one of the founding members of SomaTone Interactive Audio, one the largest game audio production companies in the world today. He has been the executive producer on over 600 soundtracks between games, films, records and interactive media campaigns. With a passion for building businesses, he is founding partner of World’s Hidden Masters, an international publishing company, COO and founding partner of Franklin Digital Properties, a web business management firm, EBIVE Entertainment, an artist production company, and executive coach for Fearless Wealth, an investment education company. Kane continues to consult with CEO’s & executive teams on leadership skills, as well as, leads workshops in the Bay Area on sales, negotiation, leadership and entrepreneurism.

Kane holds an Associates Degree in Finance from the University of Illinois, a BM in Music Business and Music Production & Engineering from Berklee College of Music, and a Masters in Audio Production from Expressions School for New Media. He has also completed masters training in Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a Laban Bartenieff Movement Analyst and has extensively studied with Landmark Education (Leadership and Communication Training Corporation), California Leadership Center (a Fortune 500 Executive Consulting Team) and Fearless Wealth (An Investment Education Group).

Tom Salta: Composer/Producer/Solo Artist, Persist Music (SF only)

Brooke Wentz: Founder, The Rights Workshop

Brooke Wentz is an award-winning music supervisor and seasoned intellectual property rights executive with more than 20 years experience working in the television, cable, film and recording industries. Her career includes six years as the Music Director for ESPN, five years as A&R Manager at Arista Records, ten years as on-air radio host of new music on NPR and licensing work with New Media and Music Direction at TechTV. As a music supervisor, Brooke has a diverse and extensive list of credits, including work in television (ESPN, HBO, Discovery) and film (The Devil and Daniel Johnston/Sony Pictures Classics, American Hardcore/Sony Pictures Classics, Ballets Russes/Zeitgeist Films and Academy Awards®-nominated documentary The Weather Underground). Brooke is also the author of the book "Hey, That's My Music: Music Supervision, Licensing and Content Acquisition" (published by Hal Leonard Corporation, 2007), a comprehensive guide to music licensing and copyright issues.

Brooke is also a Billboard-award winning record producer whose critically acclaimed recordings of world music, including "Global Meditation," "Global Celebration," "Voices of Forgotten Worlds," and "Africa: Never Stand Still" have been revered by many through the years. Her three-CD set "Global Divas” produced for the 1996 Third World Conference on Women in Beijing received recognition from Hillary Clinton. She was the music producer for New York City's 24-hour millennium celebration seen by an estimated 1.8 billion television viewers.

Prior to producing records, Brooke was an on-air radio host of new music on NPR and related stations where she interviewed hundreds of artists, composers and musicians, many which have been transcribed for publication. She continues her interviewing skills through a series called Sound & Cinema, and City Arts & Lectures in San Francisco.