I've made my app play music in the background, I also successfully made it become the media player by calling BeginReceivingRemoteControlEvents. however, the RemoteControlReceived method never gets called. the same logic in Objective C is working fine. Any samples or guidelines appreciated.
You need to ensure it is placed on the First responder view, and if not, the event needs to be passed up along the chain of responders until it reaches your remote events. Try to imagine remote control events the same as keypresses on the keyboard. For example, If the app is focused on a button, and you press some keyboard keys, nothing will happen, as a button isn't listening for key presses. A similar situation is occurring in your code. Try to create a basic, single viewed project with the BeginReceivingRemoteControlEvents and the method override to receive the event (cant remember what it is, RemoteEventReceived() or something similar.) This should get fired when you press a remote button.
(sorry I cant give sample code, not in front of mac at the minute)