Day 1 | 27 March 2026 | Côa Museum
9:30 Welcome note
9:45 Techno Conscience – performed by Alex Braga
A performance, a guided meditation, a 30-minute experience. TECHNO CONSCIENCE opens Act in Synch IV by creating space to arrive, settle, and think differently — before the work begins. Over 30 minutes, music, live visuals, and a slowly evolving mantra build toward what artist Alex Braga calls digital transcendence. The work uses A-MINT, an adaptive AI ecosystem developed with researchers at Roma Tre University and the University of Catania. The system responds in real time to the room — acoustic environment, audience attention, spatial dynamics — so every performance is different. TECHNO CONSCIENCE has been staged at Mozilla Festival Barcelona, Ars Electronica, Mutek, Sónar, and the Centre Pompidou. At CÔA, it opens Day 1.
10:20 Copyright, Creativity, and AI
Daniel Nordgård, professor of music business at the University of Agder and director of the Norwegian Center for Excellence in Creative use of Technology in Music Education, traces the arc from streaming’s broken promises to AI’s unresolved questions. Drawing on years of research into how digital change affects artists, markets, and the broader music ecosystem, he argues that the industry is still in the early stages of an AI transition that mirrors the disruption of peer-to-peer file sharing two decades ago. His talk covers the structural problems of the pro-rata streaming model, the mounting costs of AI-generated content volume, and the three legal knots that need untangling before sustainable models can emerge. It ends with a provocation: in a market built for the 95% of passive listeners, almost nothing has been designed for the 5% who actually love music and that gap is where the next real innovation lives.
11:00 SoundsRight: Nature as an Artist
What would it mean to recognise nature as a rightsholder in the music industry? SoundsRight is an initiative developed with UNESCO, Spotify, and Brian Eno that channels royalties from recordings of natural sounds back to conservation. Iminza Mbwaya, Associate Director of SoundsRight and the Sounds of Earth project, opens Act in Synch IV by asking what it would look like to genuinely include the non-human in our frameworks for creative rights.
11:30 Rewilding Portugal: Presentation and Field Walk
Before the afternoon workshops, we take the work outside. Pedro, CEO of Rewilding Portugal, presents the organisation’s work in the Côa Valley — one of their core project areas, where wolves, wild horses, and natural river processes are gradually being restored. The presentation is followed by a guided walk through the landscape around the museum. The Côa Valley is the reason we are here. This session connects the conference’s metaphor — rewilding — to the actual ecological work happening in the hills beyond the window.
12:30 Lunch Break
14:30Workshop 1: Questioning the Present
Three groups, two hours. Day 1 takes stock of where the music industry is. Participants work through a series of claims about AI, data, creativity, and fairness. Vote on them. Discuss. See whether the numbers shift. Two conversation drivers per group are chosen for the productive tension between their perspectives, not their agreement. The session ends outside, with a card, three prompts, and a view of the valley.
16:45 Recess
What have we gained?
What would you like 2036 to look like? Cards are anonymous. Write alone, or talk to someone the hour is yours to use. When you’re done, drop your card in the box and pick up a colour token. That colour is your dinner table. The cards don’t disappear. They become the raw material for Day 2.
20:30 Rewilding Portugal Film Screening
Day 2 | 28 March 2026 | Côa Museum
9:00 Morning Bird Watching
An optional early morning walk in the valley. The Côa is one of the best sites in Iberia for raptors and riverside species — the kind of thing you can’t see from inside a conference room. Capacity limited.
11:45 Useless Music Knowledge
A deliberately light opening to Day 2.
Hannes Tschürtz (Ink Music, Vienna) opens the morning with a short, intentionally un-serious session. The format is loose. The content is useless. The effect is to get people in the room and ready for the harder work that follows.
12:15 Workshop 2: From Imagination to Responsibility
Day 2 begins with someone else’s words. Each participant receives an anonymous card written during the Golden Hour — and the conversation opens there: what they’re holding, what it brings up, what they notice. Then it turns. Participants share their own vision for 2036, and the group works backwards together: what would actually need to be in place? What’s the smallest believable step from here? The ideas that land might end up on vinyl.
13:00 Lunch Break
14:30 Music Supervisors Roundtable
Julian Krohn · Thibault Deboaisne · Patricia Carrera · Bruno Muñoz · Frédéric Schindler · Sérgio Pimentel · Clément Souchier · Hanna-Greet Peetson · Žiga Drofenik · Marta Ramalho · Lisa Humann · Francesca Barone · Alicia Richards · Terese Gustafsson · Patrick Joest · Kevin Richards ·
A roundtable of international experts discusses the goals and the findings of the Europe in Synch 2.0 project towards an improved European Synch business environment. A closed working session for music supervisors and synch professionals.
Runs in parallel with the museum tour. Moderator: Markus Linde
14:30 CÔA Museum and Rock Art Tour
17:45 Europe in Synch: Closing Session
As the Europe in Synch Program draws to a close, Project Coordinator Nuno Saraiva (AMAEI) invites Miguel Carretas (Audiogest), Eva Karman Reinhold (SOM/IMPALA) and Shain Shapiro (Sound Diplomacy) to reflect on the four year-project as well as identifying future-facing policy strategies that can improve the European synch landscape. How can we place more European music in audio-visual productions? How can we work towards sustainability – financial and environmental – in the music industry and synch? And ultimately, what do we consider most important for the future of music at the intersection point with the audiovisual sector?
18:45 Vinyl Handover
A short closing ceremony before the evening. A direct-to-vinyl record produced from field recordings made in the Côa Valley and shaped through an AI-generated narrative — is formally presented and handed over to the CÔA Museum’s permanent collection.
20:00 The Wolf Ball @ Cultural Centre
The Wolfball will take place on March 28 at the Vila Nova de Foz Côa Cultural Centre, serving as the closing ceremony of Act in Synch, this event is a truly unique fundraising event: in addition to dinner and a welcome reception, it features a one-of-a-kind concert created especially for the occasion. In the week leading up to the event, a music residency in Vila Nova de Foz Côa will bring together Portuguese and international artists to collaborate on new music inspired by the “Sounds of Côa”. The traditional sounds of the Côa Valley — both natural and human — were recorded and curated throughout February and March by Vasco Ribeiro Casais, also known as OMIRI, who has extensive experience in local folk music preservation projects. The proceeds from the Wolfball — which aims to bring together professionals from the music industry, local communities and biosphere conservation experts — will support Rewilding Portugal, specifically funding actions to protect and preserve species such as the Iberian wolf, as well as raising awareness for this cause. Organized in partnership by Scarlet Bloom, Lusitanian Music Publishing, with support from the Municipality of Vila Nova de Foz Côa, Mermaids & Albatrosses Digital Distribution & Fundação GDA, admission tickets cost €100 (including dinner and the concert). The concert itself will be free to attend for the local population, who may alternatively contribute to the fundraising effort through voluntary donations of any amount.
