Judges

Vlado Meller (USA) Chairman of the jury.

Vlado is on of the best, undisputed masters of mastering.
Two-time GRAMMY Award winner. Vlado has been a mastering engineer for his entire 43-year career in the recording industry. Just a small sampling of his credits cut across multiple genres of music, including rock, hip hop, pop, jazz, metal, dance, opera, Broadway and classical.
Artists that Vlado Meller has mastered include:
Beastie Boys, Andrea Bocelli, Johnny Cash, Charlotte Church, Celine Dion, Duran Duran, Kenny G, Kenny Loggins, Julio Iglesias, Michael Jackson, Lil Wayne, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Kanye West, Kenny Loggins, Paul McCartney, Metallica, George Michael, Oasis, Pink Floyd, Public Enemy, Rage Against The Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Shakira, Barbra Streisand, System Of A Down, Weezer, Jack White, and many, many more.
Vlado worked with CBS/Sony for 38 years. After the legendary Sony Studios in New York City closed, Meller joined Universal Mastering, where he continued to expand his unparalleled portfolio until 2011.

Today, Vlado continues to perfect his craft at his own studio – Vlado Meller Mastering – located in Charleston, South Carolina, USA.

Rudolf Geri (SK)

Rudolf Geri is a Slovak music composer, music arranger, conductor and artistic director of the music company Gedur. He has become a prominent figure on the Slovak artistic, cultural and, above all, the music scene. He studied and conducted not only for national audience but also in other countries, for example My Fair Lady; Grand hotel; Blood Brothers; Oliver Twist; Sweet Charity; High Society; etc. As an artistic head of the Teatro Wüstenrot theatre, he has been studying and presenting for the audience the extremely successful and very popular American musical comedies after 2000, for example: Everyone has his Leon, Musical, etc.
He is the author of music for at least 150 films and theatre and TV productions. He has written six musicals – Dishevelled Gentlemen; Shepherd’s Flute Show; Crash Course on Geniality etc. His music is also associated with the generation of successful Slovak actors – Zuzana Tlučková, Igor Šimeg, Miro Noga and others. For six years, the conductor has successfully directed the musical ensemble of the Dracula musical in Prague, which has achieved an unbelievable number of 1,400 repetitions.

Paul Wiffen (UK)

First feature film Paul worked on was Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner with Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, and orchestral music Vangelis. Paul worked as a musician, sound designer and music programmer for 20 years, doing more sound design work for Vangelis on The Bounty, Francesco, Ridley Scott masterpiece 1492: Conquest of Paradise as well as for Paul McCartney on the title song for John Landis’ Spies Like Us. On a two year stint with Stevie Wonder, he programmed sounds and sequences for songs in Die Hard, Woman in Red and Jungle Fever and while in Los Angeles also worked with award-winning composers Mark Isham and Hans Zimmer. Most recently, his sounds were used by Peter Gabriel in Philip Noyce’s Rabbitproof Fence. Outside of films he programmed for Ultravox, Geoff Downes (Buggles, Yes, Asia), Peter Gabriel and Jean-Michel Jarre. He also assisted Elliot Scheiner on 5.1 surround remixes of Bohemian Rhapsody.