CONTACTS – Music | Media | Cultures: This was the title of a lecture series that Anna Schürmer realized at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln in the winter of 2023/24.

The aim of the series was to bring together researchers from different backgrounds: musicians who create art using acoustic media; individuals who write or speak about music in print, radio, and online media; as well as musicologists who focus on audiovisual media – such as films.

Franziska Kollinger was a guest in the lecture series on this topic – so it was natural to seize this opportunity for a SPECIAL EDITION of AUDIO:VISIONEN, in which the two musicologists and moderators do not act as interviewers, but as interviewees. Together, they discuss the idea and goals of their podcast, composed film music, and the use of pre-existing music, as well as the narrative structure, especially in Jim Jarmusch’s films, and the nostalgia of vinyl records in the digital age.

Freya Arde is an award-winning composer, guitarist, and music producer from Berlin. She is considered “one of the top German talents in film music” (MDM magazine trailer). Her latest works include “The Corridors of Power”, a documentary film by Oscar-nominated Dror Moreh, and the bestseller of Germany’s most popular forester Peter Wohlleben, “Das geheime Leben der Bäume”.
Immediately after completing her Master’s degree in film music at the Berlin-Babelsberg school of film and television in 2016, she won the German Film Music Award as best newcomer for her first film score for “Nellys Abenteuer”. Before that, she studied composition and guitar at the Dresden school of music and at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris. Her unique sound landscapes combine acoustic instrumentation with audio processing and electronics. She worked with orchestras such as the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg, the Budapest Art Orchestra and the Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt. In 2020, she released her debut EP “Spirit Awake” as a solo artist. Her new single “Moon Window” is part of the Deutsche Grammophon Project 12.

More about Freya Arde: https://freyaarde.com/

Markus Rennhack, born in 1980 in Zwickau, has been a musician and composer since age 14. He moved to Leipzig with his band “unloved” in 2003, where he balanced university and the stage, finally – interrupted by two releases – graduating from his political science studies in 2009. Further releases and extensive touring took “unloved” all the way to Japan. As a copyright expert, active musician, and composer, he has been in demand since 2012 as an expert on collecting societies, licensing chains, and copyright reform. He joined Kick The Flame in 2014 and helped build the company into one of central Germany’s leading indie publishers. For the first time in 2015 and at every new election since then, he was sent by his peers in the composers club as delegate of the extraordinary members to the GEMA General Meeting, where he represents the interests of the self- marketing musicians in particular. He has been teaching aspiring music managers and music publishers as a guest lecturer at Popakademie Mannheim since 2018. Since 2020, he has been a co- opted member of the VUT’s policy committee.

More about Kick The Flame: https://www.kicktheflame.de/

Susanne Hardt is a music theorist and composer, currently working on her doctoral thesis on film music. Her own music is often experimental and humorous. Most recently, she wrote music for the interactive picture book “Somewhere” (2021) and the computer game “Prim” (expected release 2023/24).

More about Susanne Hardt: https://susannehardt.de