Music Meets Film, part of Discovery Campus, the international education programme at Industy@Tallinn & Baltic Event, welcomes eight emerging film music composers and producers from around the world to its programme.
Music Meets Film has been running for over a decade, bringing together film music professionals from around the world. Since its upgrade last year, the programme has focused on young film composers - the next generation of film music talent. A total of 28 talents applied for this year's edition.
The eight selected talents for Music Meets Film 2024 edition include a French film composer Agathe Lavarel, who recently received Honorable Mention at the European Talent Awards at Soundtrack Cologne, a French multi-instrumentalist musician and a composer Célyne Baudino, an experienced Finnish media composer Mikko Aaltio, German-Czech film composer, arranger and musician Natalie Schäfer, composer, Brooks Leibee from USA and music producer and composer Kristjan Ruus together with composers Villem Rootalu and Lauri Kadalipp from Estonia.
The four-day programme from 19-22 November includes lectures and masterclasses by award-winning professionals and industry-leading companies and partners that offer practical tools and guidance for the participants’ careers and help navigate the industry in the filmmaking process as well as various networking opportunities.
One of the main themes of this year's programme is co-production and collaboration through music. The panel discussion closely examines two award-winning films Driving Mum and Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, successful co-production projects between Estonia and Iceland. The discussion shedding light to these projects welcomes Driving Mum team including Hilmar Oddsson (director), Tõnu Kõrvits (composer), Matis Rei (sound designer) and Hendrik Mägar (editor), and Anna Hints (director) as well as Eðvarð Egilsson (composer) from Smoke Sauna Sisterhood.
As practical skills are an important part of Music Meets Film, the programme includes a creative competition workshop. This time the participants will work with the music supervisor Kathleen Wallfisch, whose latest works include Gladiator 2 that will be released within 2024, Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (2023), Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022) etc. The workshop will take place at Selektor Studio in Tallinn, where the participants create a piece of score according to a sample brief. During this workshop, participants will experience what it's like to work with a music supervisor, how to read and create for a brief in a fixed timeframe. The winner of the workshop will receive a recording session for the next day with selected musicians.
The programme also contains a workshop "Navigating the Industry", created by Tier Music Publishing and Orchestral Tools. Thea Zaitsev and Sandra Perens (Tier Music Publishing) with Graham Ball (Orchestral Tools) create a navigation map of suggested networks for the participants for them to find their next partners and projects. In this workshop the document will be introduced as well as practical exercises will be done on topics such as how to pitch yourself and your music.
In addition, there is a one-on-one discussion "Dialogue on Contracts: Before and After Signing" between film composer Liina Sumera and attorney and partner at TGS Baltic Priit Lätt, attorney at law, covering the tender topics of rights, negotiations and contracts, which are essential for everyone in the film industry.
Check the full list of events here
Music Meets Film 2024 participants:
Agathe Lavarel
Agathe Lavarel is a film composer, flutist and singer who combines orchestral writing with vocal and electronic textures. Her work has been featured in short films, video games and virtual reality exhibitions. In 2024, she won an honourable mention at the European Talent Awards at Soundtrack Cologne for her collaboration with sound designer Nicolas vön Moreau. In 2023, she won the French New Wave Award for "Exploration". In 2022, she received the 1st ALLIA Award for Inspiring Female Artists in Canada.
Brooks Leibee
Brooks Leibee, born in South Carolina, USA, found an early love for film and the music within the screen. He went on to pursue his interests in film, creating projects behind the camera and score. He performed in grade school orchestras for eight years before competing in All-County and All-State Orchestras. In undergrad, he began writing soundtracks for he and his friends' short films. Science then he has built his professional portfolio as a composer for film and media.
Célyne Baudino
Célyne Baudino is a French multi-instrumentalist musician and composer who has written music for film, live entertainment, orchestral scores and radio. Her artistry has already enriched several short and animated films, as well as a first feature-length documentary. One of these, Kill the Horse, recently won the Best Animation Short Film Award at the 2024 Shanghai International Film Festival. Her musical works combine vocal, acoustic and electronic textures to create a rich and powerful universe.
Kristjan Ruus
Estonian music producer, composer, writer, artist and lifelong cinema fan. He has been making music for himself for years. Recently he has worked with or participated in writing camps for Universal Music Group, Roc Nation, Atlantic Records, Epic Records, The Hello Group, Loudkult, Soave Records, Nova Wav. He has also done some work in sync, working with Nissan, TBWA, NFL, placing music on ESPN+.
Lauri Kadalipp
Lauri Kadalipp, Estonian composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, is the founder and current artistic director of the New Wind Jazz Orchestra. He has arranged music for Estonian pop artists, such as Anett, NOËP, Angus, Gameboy Tetris, Smilers and many more. His first bigger film music work for Vanamehe film (2019) received a nomination for the best film composer award in 2020 at EFTA (Estonian Film and TV Awards).
Mikko Aaltio
Former multi-instrumentalist for Finnish rock band Tiisu, Mikko Aaltio has become a media composer. His scores include YLE's drama series No Shame. His music can also be heard in the indie video games Birds Organised Neatly, Feed All Monsters and Dealer's Life Legend. As an arranger and orchestrator, Mikko has worked on many high-profile projects such as Netflix's Finding 'ohana, the Finnish F2P mega-hit mobile video games Clash of Clans and Merge Mansion, and BossLady, the musical for Jyväskylä City Theatre.
Natalie Schäfer
Natalie Schäfer is a German-Czech film composer, arranger, musician and teacher. She is currently studying composition for film and media with Nicklas Schmidt and Daniel Fjellström at the Malmö Academy of Music (Lunds Universitet). From September 2024 to June 2026 she will complete her concert exam in classical composition with Prof. Bent Sørensen at the Malmö Academy of Music. Her compositions are inspired by composers such as Karin Rehnqvist and John Williams.
Villem Rootalu
Villem Roosalu studied jazz bass guitar at Otsakool and TÜVKA. He has been playing the bass for 18 years and has been a performing musician for about 15 years. During his studies he learned about sound engineering and started doing a lot of studio work, which led to working on theatre shows. Soon he was asked to compose for a show himself. For the last 8 years he has been composing for theatre shows, but has also worked on sound design and music for games and short films.