A photo of a Guthman judge's note pad, taken from behind his shoulder as he writes.

2022 Judges

2022 Judges

Each year we invite international experts in music technology to judge the Guthman Competition. They spend time learning about our finalists' work, asking key questions about the designs, and sharing perspectives with the music technology community. 

Some judges, like performance artist Laurie Anderson, jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, hip hop musician Young Guru, and Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess have used new technologies in performances and recordings to captivate audiences all over the world.

Others, like Technical Grammy Award Winner Roger Linn, synthesizer pioneer Tom Oberheim, and Cycling 74' Founder David Zicarelli have created new hardware and software that have changed the way we make music.

Many of our judges, like Stanford professor Ge Wang, McGill professor Marcelo Wanderley, and London University of the Arts reader Rebecca Fiebrink have conducted groundbreaking research that set the foundation for technical and design innovations in the music industry.

Gerhard Behles

Gerhard Behles looking to the side.

Gerhard Behles grew up in Munich and developed an interest in electronic music as a teenager. 

After a year at the Institute for Sonology in The Hague, he moved to Berlin to study computer science, where he also worked as a freelance electronic music writer, researcher, and computer music teacher. Behles later started the electronic music project Monolake with his fellow student Robert Henke. They also worked together with computer scientist Bernd Roggendorf on a new music software application, which eventually became Ableton Live. Behles and Roggendorf founded Ableton in 1999, and Live rapidly became one of the most popular sequencer programs for electronic musicians. 

Today, Behles continues his role as Ableton’s CEO and chief visionary, where he oversees the work of more than 400 employees as they develop the future of Live, Push, and more. 

Paola Antonelli

Paola Antonelli looking to the side.

Paola Antonelli is Senior Curator at The Museum of Modern Art in the Department of Architecture & Design, as well as MoMA’s founding Director of Research & Development. Her most recent exhibition, Broken Nature, opened at MoMA in November 2020. She is also currently working on @design.emergency, an Instagram and book project that explores design’s role in building a better future for all, in collaboration with critic Alice Rawsthorn. 

Rick Beato

Rick Beato sitting inside a dim-light studio.

Rick Beato is an American YouTube personality, music professional, and educator. Since the early 1980s, he has worked variously as a musician, songwriter, audio engineer and record producer. Beato lives in Georgia, United States. He has written songs with, and produced music for, a variety of musical artists, including Needtobreathe, Parmalee, and Shinedown. 
 
Beato was born into a large family from Rochester, New York. He studied at Ithaca College, obtaining a bachelor of arts degree in music. He earned a master's degree in jazz studies from the New England Conservatory of Music in 1987. 
 
Beato began his YouTube career in 2015 after posting a video of his eldest child, Dylan, who is able to identify individual notes within complex chords after just one hearing.This video of his son's display of perfect pitch received 21 million views, causing Beato to decide to parlay his social media fame into a full-fledged YouTube channel. He posted his first YouTube video on June 8, 2016. On August 27, 2019, Beato received the Golden Play Button from YouTube when he achieved 1 million subscribers. As of August 2021, the YouTube channel has 2.5 million subscribers. 


Beato's channel is under his own name, although he introduces every video with the title "Everything Music". One series in the channel is called What Makes This Song Great?, in which Beato deconstructs and discusses the elements of popular songs. The videos in the series regularly get over one million views. 
 
In one video, Beato enlists the help of Bon Jovi guitarist Phil X and virtuoso guitarist Eric Johnson to re-interpret the guitar solo on Led Zeppelin's iconic "Stairway to Heaven". Beato and Phil X play the guitar solo in the styles of Peter Frampton and Eddie Van Halen, respectively, while Johnson plays it in his own style. 
 
Beato has been vocal about what he believes are problems with the enforcement of copyright law, and its application on the YouTube platform. Several of his videos, including those about Radiohead and Fleetwood Mac, were issued take-down notices because of copyright claims. 

In July 2020, Beato testified about his experiences on YouTube before a United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary reviewing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act considering limitations and exceptions like fair use.

Questions?

 
If you can't find the information you were looking for, we'll get you to the right place.
Contact Us