What really happens when a sync deal is made? In this candid conversation, we bring both sides of the table together: the music supervisor (buyer) and the sync agent (seller). Julie Hurwitz (Songbird) and Beth Urdang (Selfsame Industries) have worked across continents, genres, and formats and have built a trusted relationship through decades in the sync world.
Together, they’ll unpack the realities of music placement today: how tracks get discovered, pitched, cleared, and ultimately chosen. Expect honest takes on what makes a pitch stand out, what supervisors actually need, and how the relationship between rights holders and supervisors is evolving in the age of AI, metadata, and global content demand. This session offers rare insight into the sync process from both sides perfect for artists, publishers, rights managers and anyone looking to better understand how music ends up in film, TV, games and ads.
This session is only accessible with an ADE Pro Pass.
Julie Hurwitz
Founder & CEO, Songbird Creative, USJulie Hurwitz is a 20+ year music industry veteran and the Founder and CEO of Songbird Creative, a music agency advising catalogue owners, publishers, labels and tech start-ups on operational strategy, recruitment and sync licensing.
Before launching Songbird, Julie was President of Synch and Creative Operations at Hipgnosis Song Management, and spent more than a decade at Kobalt Music Group, where she was Co-Head of Synch, managing a team of 55+ across nine cities. She has negotiated multiple millions of dollars in licenses as well as Super Bowl commercials and Presidential campaigns. In tandem with Kobalt’s People & Culture team, Julie led the company’s recruitment strategy.
Before Kobalt, Julie was VP at Nettwerk Music, Music Producer at Ogilvy Advertising, and founding Executive Creative Director at the renowned music production company, Q Department. She currently sits on the board of the Association of Music Producers.
Julie loves interior design, tamales, dark comedy and direct communication. She lives in Queens, NY, with her husband, two teenagers and their dog, Ziggy.
Beth Urdang
Music Supervisor, USBeth Urdang is a longtime music supervisor working in advertising, film, television, and theatre.
Urdang got her start as the original in-house music supervisor at Wieden & Kennedy’s Portland and Amsterdam offices, working on global campaigns for Nike, Coca-Cola, Miller Genuine Draft and Microsoft, among others. Returning to her hometown of New York in 1998, Urdang then founded the independent music-supervision company Agoraphone. Urdang and Agoraphone were associated with finding and overseeing the music for some of the best-known spots and campaigns of those years — including award-winning work for Heineken, Nike, HP, Adidas, Levi’s, and many more.
In 2013, Urdang started Selfsame Industries, a Swedish-US company that continues with work on global advertising projects (Booking.com, Grey Goose, Spotify, Meta, and many more), with additional and growing focus on film, TV, theater, and other musical endeavors in both the art and commercial worlds.
In 2022 Urdang founded The Silent Part, a company within Selfsame Industries, that focuses on music clearances and copyright worldwide.