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GameSoundCon 2009 LA & SF -  G U E S T  S P E A K E R S

Chance Thomas: HUGEsound Network

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 Lipson: President, Game Audio Network Guild (GANG); COO, Pyramind, Inc
Paul is extremely passionate about arts and the advancement of interactive audio, and currently serves as the President of the Game Audio Network Guild (GANG) and the Chief Operating Officer of Pyramind, Inc. He has worked closely with the officers of G.A.N.G. to originate the industry-first Program Partnership Initiative, created the first fully accredited game audio degree programs, and was the mastermind behind the Guild Scholarship Award for Game Audio. Paul was awarded the G.A.N.G. “Distinguished Service Award” at the 2006 Game Developer’s Conference for his work in education and advocacy for the interactive audio arts.

Paul is an accomplished lecturer and speaker, and has lead numerous panels and master-classes at the Game Developers Conference, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Berklee College of Music, Yale University, the Musician's Institute, SIGGRAPH, and at the Conservatory of Pernambuco in Brazil.

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.

Gene Semel: Senior Manager, Sound Group, Sony Computer Entertainment (LA only)
Gene Semel's professional career has spanned over a decade and he is currently in charge of the Sound Group at SCEA (Playstation). Gene began his career as an intern for Steve Vai and later to become Audio Director for Interplay Entertainment and High Moon Studios prior to joining Sony. Gene spent many years in post production for television and films. His credits include Re-recording Mixer, Sound Designer and Sound Editor on many TV, film, and interactive entertainment projects.
He worked closely with the TEC Awards and Mix Foundation to introduce the Interactive Entertainment Sound Production award in 2007 and acts as the chair of the awards steering committee. He is a board membe of the Game Audio Network Guild and co-chair of the G.A.N.G.-I.E.S.D., a professional branch of GANG and he is a member of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences and the AES technical committee for games.

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)

Award-winning composer Tom Salta creates dramatic original music in a variety of genres for film, television, advertising and video games. Renowned for his versatility and prolific writing styles, his game scoring credits include Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X, RED STEEL (Winner of IGN's Best Original Score), TOM CLANCY'S GHOST RECON: ADVANCED WARFIGHTER 1 & 2 (GRAW nominated for "Best Video Game Score" at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards), COLD FEAR and NEED FOR SPEED UNDERGROUND 2. Salta’s engaging and in-demand music orchestral music is also featured in several motion picture trailers including “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” “Coraline”, “Astroboy” , “Traitor”,  “The Last Mimzy”, “Arthur and the Invisibles”, and “The Da Vinci Code” making of featurette.  Recording under the artist name "Atlas Plug", Salta's high-energy mix of electronica, orchestral, breakbeat and rock grooves grace many television shows, movie trailers and video games including CRACKDOWN, THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT and PROJECT GOTHAM RACING 3. He is currently working on several AAA game scores and the follow up to his debut Atlas Plug album, "2 Days or Die".

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.

Morla Gorrondona: Voice Actor/Voice Over Conultant- Founder ActorMorla.com 

For nearly 15 years, Morla Gorrondona has been refining her craft as an actor with a focused discipline in Voice, Diction, Dialects and Characterization. Having earned a BFA in Theatre performance from the historic University of Mississippi in Oxford, Morla has built a reputation for excellence in NYC, New Orleans, Los Angeles and San Francisco.  What started out as a childhood joy of mimicking and recording characters on a simple cassette recorder has over the years developed into a state of the art VO creative service provider and consultancy with an impressive client list, including: Microsoft Game Studios, Soundelux DMG, 2K Games, Sony Computer Entertainment America, Sega of America, IGN, Southpeak Entertainment, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and many more.  Morla proudly serves as co-chair for the Game Audio Network Guild's Voice Actor Coalition (GVAC) and is an active member of G.A.N.G. as well the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), Actors' Equity Association (AEA) and International Game Developers Association (IGDA).

Marty O'Donnell: Director of Audio, Bungie Studios (LA only)

Marty O'Donnell received his Masters of Music Degree in Composition, with honors, from USC in the early 80's, started the Chicago based commercial music and sound production company TotalAudio, and composed numerous original scores for TV, Radio and Film. In 1997 TotalAudio produced sound design for Cyan’s Riven, the Sequel to Myst, and all the audio for Bungie’s award winning Myth series. In May of 2000, ten days after Marty accepted the position as Bungie’s Audio Director/Composer, Microsoft purchased Bungie and moved them to Redmond to develop games for the Xbox. The highly acclaimed Halo series has been extremely successful for the Xbox platform with the total number of Halo games played in excess of 10 billion. Halo 3 set entertainment records for both single day and first week sales. Among Bungie’s many accolades are the Wired Rave Award and being named to the Time 100 List. The audio and music for Halo has received numerous awards including The Game Developers Choice Award, The Edge Award, Rolling Stone Magazine’s Best Game Soundtrack, and Best Sound from the AIAS, IGDA, and the 2008 TEC award. The critically acclaimed soundtracks are also best sellers. In July of 2007 Marty became one of the partners in the once again independent Bungie. For the upcoming title, Halo 3: ODST, Marty has produced more than three hours of new original music. He has been married for more than 30 years and is the father of two beautiful daughters.

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