For trumpet soloing in the film, Tierbrücke (Animal Bridge) featuring the animal rescuer and star influencer, Malte Zierden. The popular TV documentary shows Mr. Zierden and his team going to Ukraine to rescue animals and buld an animal shelter.
Send me an email requesting the link when the album is out! sounds@paulbrody.net
Welcome to my Gleisdreieck Suite trailer featuring musicians living in Berlin. Featured will be instrumentalists from Alligatoah, Element of Crime, Clueso, 17 Hippies and more! I recorded this urban park in Berlin, put the sounds in my sampler, and play it as an instrument. The basketballs and skates become percussion, the nightingales become an organ, the bees and playgrounds are transformed into ambient sounds. Then I invited a select group of musicians to join me for duets, like taking a sound walk together in the park!
Thank you for checking out my work! At first glance, it may look like a wide variety of projects are presented. But for me, they all explore the world between spoken word and music.
A story is a melody. A melody is a story.
Also, when I compose for an orchestra, I sometimes like to think the ensemble as a grand sampler; and when I compose with electronically triggered noises collected in my sampler, I often think orchestrally.
Humboldt Forum interactive sound installation,Thousand Worldsopenning in Spring of 2025. This high tech mood room explores the multi-cultural context of what makes a person feel at home. The project started with creating visual and sound art that reflected feelings of home. Two groups of young people were involved, young people form the a Kreuzberg Refugee home and the summer art class at theEvangelische Schule Berlin. The result is an interactive installation when visitors can piece together their own elements of home to create a visual-audio world.
Paradise Found– An operatic sound installation at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe Inspired from Brody’s interveiw based opera at the Opéra national de Lorraine, prize winning artistic director, Kevin Barz, is leading a two year project based on exploring notions of paradise. The interview based sound installation will be shown as publish art in Karlsruhe. For more information about Paradise Found:https://www.staatstheater.karlsruhe.de/programm/info/3674
In 2022 I was commissioned by the city of Berlin to create a documentary soundwalk about the ‘central park’ of the city. To support the interviews with historians, biologists, park planners, activists, I recorded the sounds of the park -the trains, the nightingales, foxes, skaters, basketball games, wind- for example, and put them in my sampler to compose the music that support the interviews about the park.. Here is the link to Storywalk Gleisdreieck in English, Turkish, and German:
Now I am reversing the process! Rather than focusing on the words of the interviews and using the music as the background, I am putting the soundtrack in the forground and inviting Berlin musiciains to play duets with the park! Here are a short demo of favorite moments.
RBB TV DER TAG FEATURE:
The above video is NOT for commercail use. Only to show work.
RBB TV: DER TAG is documents the Gleisdreieck sound art work. Shown May 23d, 6:53 pm and RBB Mediathek, streamed.
Solo album & live program: Paul Brody’s Poetry Electric
FULL ALBUM ON SPOTIFY BELOW!
Paul Brody’s wild and ambient compositions inspired by the voices of poets he recorded. The poets introduce themselves and often describe the sounds that they feel are important in their poems. These are often included in the soundscape, along with Trumpet, cello, accordion, and noises from objects found on the streets of Berlin. Brody thinks of these compositions as “musical translations” of the poems, which connects the work with an obscure method of translating poetry called homophonic translation. This is when a poem is translated, not by the meaning of the text, but by the sonic quality of the poem.
Gregor Dotzauer: Chief literary editor from Der Tagesspiegel Prefabricated tracks, samples thrown in and trumpet solos born of the moment, ranging from a squeak to a hymn, make Brody’s performances an experience in their own right. The noisily atmospheric and the distinctively peeling, the melodic and the rhythmic enter into a liaison that gives the lyrics a second life. After centuries of closeness, the contemporary poem and the song have a hard time with each other for many reasons. The way in which Brody’s music takes on the voices of poets from different languages and regions, without completely assimilating them, perhaps there is a future that we no longer dare to hope for.
Two of the writers, Uljana Wolf and Christian Hawkey, were already working with poetry via homophonic translation, or when a poem is translated from the sound of the phrases rather than the meaning of the words. Brody’s compositions and improvisations extend homophonic translation in that he draws inspiration from both the sonic element of the poems well as the expression of the poet’s own voiceThe previous concerts have been full, and the audience has enjoyed an after-show party with ambient music based on the voices of the poets. Vowels expand into long tonal passages, consonants cut into grooves, and syllables are flushed with tonal colors.
ABOUT PAUL BRODY: From Blixa Bargel to John Zorn, Brody works regularly as a sound artist, composer and trumpeter at the Théâtre de Vidy in Lausanne, the Münchner Kammerspiele, the Berliner Schaubühne, the MC93 Paris, the New York Harlem Opera and the Vienna Burgtheater, among others. He works closely with the music producer John Zorn. His album HINTER ALLEN WORTEN, which features artists such as Clueso, Meret Becker and Jelena Kulijic, was on the best list of the German Record Critics’ Award. Paul Brody was nominated for the Europe Broadcasting Festival and the Vienna International Feature Festival for his work as a sound artist. His sound art works have already been heard on WDR, Deutschlandradio, the Jewish Museum Berlin, the MuseumsQuartier Vienna and at Transmediale Berlin. He is currently writing an opera for the Opéra National de Lorraine in Nancy. He works closely with the theater directors David Marton and Hans-Werner Kroesinger.
Writers: Uljana Wolf, Marica Bodrožić, Tomas Venclova, Katharina Ogentoye, Christian Hawkey, Ellen Hinsey, Gregor Dotzauer, Tom Drury, Angélica Freitas, Gregor Hens, Ivana Sajko, Tom Bresemann, Donna Stonecipher, Michael Krüger, Marina Frenk, Orsolya Kalasz, Isaac Goodman, Carolyn Gammon
In den 1990ern zieht der amerikanische Jazztrompeter Paul Brody nach Berlin. Trotz jüdischer Eltern versteht er sich selbst nicht als Jude. Erst die Klezmer-Musik bringt ihn dazu, sich mit seiner Familiengeschichte zu beschäftigen.
Als Paul Brody in den 1990er Jahren von Boston nach Berlin kommt, stellt er sich als kalifornischen Dada-Jazztrompeter vor. Denn in Kalifornien wuchs er auf. Seine jüdische Mutter stammte aus Wien und floh 1939 mit einem Kindertransport vor den Nazis. Sein Vater war Sohn jüdisch-orthodoxer Einwanderer aus der Ukraine. Doch seine Eltern lehnten jede religiöse Kindererziehung ab. Sich selbst also als jüdischen Musiker zu betrachten, auf die Idee kommt Paul nicht. Eher zufällig landet er in einer Klezmer-Band und gibt selbst Klezmer-Unterricht. Durch die Musik beginnt sich sein Blick auf die eigene Geschichte zu verändern. Kann man Klezmer unabhängig von seinem religiösen Kontext spielen? Und was ist das überhaupt: jiddische Musik?
Mit Florian Lukas und Paul Brody
Die Hörspiel-Kooperation von 1LIVE und WDR 3 – Pop trifft Politik, Doku trifft Drama, Herz trifft Schmerz. Jeden Montag!
Von Paul Brody Regie: Nikolai von Koslowski Komposition: Paul Brody Redaktion: Leslie Rosin
Listen to the English version of this WDR feature & Prix Europa Broadcasting Festival Nomination
When trumpet player and composer Paul Brody moved from San Francisco to Berlin in the early 90’s, he soon began to deny being Jewish. That wasn’t due to any shame about his heritage or fears of anti-Semitism, but rather because German journalists were more interested in his family’s history as refugees from the Nazis than in his musical ideas. A few years after his arrival, though, Paul found a middle ground that allowed him to both embrace his heritage and be the musician he knew himself to be: a synthesis of klezmer and jazz.
Forming his klezmer-jazz group, Sadawi, forced Paul to engage in a more intimate dialogue with his family history, taking him out of his comfort zone. And performing directly in the shadow of the Holocaust helped the band achieve some success as German philosemitism and the enthusiasm of Berlin audiences for cultures other than their own.
This first-person radio feature, originally produced in German for Germany’s WDR radio network, explores Paul’s journey to Berlin and his reckoning with his heritage. Along the way, Paul discovers the commonalities between klezmer and the blues while delving deeper into his family’s history. He visits synagogues across Berlin, takes Hebrew lessons with a local Rabbi, and travels to Vienna where he tells his story to children at the school his mother attended before she was put on a Kindertransport. Paul learns to communicate, through music, the Jewish tradition of asking questions while embracing his family heritage and discovering new meaning in the tones that come out of the bell of his trumpet.
INTERVIEWEES IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE Wolf Kompmann: journalist Maria Brody: Paul’s mother Christopher Blenkinsop Rabbi Ulrike: Offenberg Peter Wortsman: Author Christian Dawid: clarinetist Sanne Möricke: accordionist All the contemporary jewish music composed by Paul Brody and played by Sadawi. (Paul Brody: trumpet, Christian Dawid: clarinet, Christian Koegel: guitar, Michael Griener: drums, Jelena Kuljić: singer.
Diese Geschichte wurde für traditionelle und moderne Formate konzipiert: als Buch, Buch mit CD, Hörspiel und interaktiv.
Nike lebt in einer musikalischen Traumwelt. Die englischen Lieder, die in ihrem Kopf entstehen, lenken sie vom Unterricht ab, und so wird sie schnell gehänselt. Nikes deutsche Mutter ist Froschforscherin, und ihr amerikanischer Vater macht Klangeffekte für den Film. Auch wenn Nike zweisprachig aufwächst, mag sie keine Sprache so richtig sprechen.
All das ändert sich als Nike Wo begegnet, einem geheimnisvollen Hund, der nur frisst, wenn der MP3-Player an seinem Futternapf Jazz spielt. Nike kümmert sich um die verlassene flauschige Seele, entdeckt ihre versteckten Talente und lernt, Freunde zu finden.
I Want to Sing!Radio BluesMozart in the SwampThe Wind, Twinkle TwinkleI do, I don’tMiss Mary MackMr. Sun
Schaust du gerne in die Sterne? Womit fühlst du dich verbunden? Im 3. OG des Ethnologischen Museums entsteht ein Raum, in dem du diesen Fragen nachgehen und aus Klängen und Bildern eine eigene Welt bauen kannst, die du mit anderen teilst. Gemeinsam mit Berliner Schüler*innen haben wir bereits viele verschiedene Welten gebaut und angeschaut. Nun laden wir euch ein, unsere Ideen zu diesem Raum auszuprobieren und zu testen. Dafür richten wir provisorische Teststationen ein, an denen ihr einige Aspekte erproben und uns sagen könnt, wie euch die Sachen gefallen haben. Kommt, baut eure Welten und entscheidet mit uns, wie der Raum und die Welten später aussehen werden!
Dear Website Visitor, sorry for the German than English! These are mini examples from the work in progress. Opening in December! More explanation will be written soon!
Hello in My Languages is based on a recording with a nine year old girl who knew how to say hello in so many languages she lost track of where some of the languages were from! Almost the entire accompaniment of her voice, including the triplet arpeggios is made from her voice alone. I used her speaking voice as an ‘instrument.’ Some archive sounds were used as variation. Blue, Green, Yellow is from children drawing at the Gemeinschaftsunterkunft. Each child describes their favorite color and what they associated with that color. Using only sounds recorded at the workshop, I tried to create musical atmospheres that sounded like the colors blue, green, and yellow. The voices of the children are embedded in the composition. Three Colors through MorphingBerlin Phonogram-Archive Sound Files is a purposely dense sound art composition to illustrate a bit of sound morphing Handwerk. It’s to give you, the listener, an idea of what kinds of complex sound structures one can create with the archive material. The possibilities are limitless! If this were to be for an exhibit, I would make the sounds lighter at the beginning and build up the density over a lot more time than 3 minutes! The sounds are from Java street music, Uzbek fiddle tunes, instrumental music from Cameroon and Malawi, and static from the wax cylinders! The Sound of Drawing is based on recording the sound of one child drawing with colored pencils. I recorded one child in a quiet room. Then I put my recorder in the middle of the table where lots of children were drawing and talking about their pictures. I cut out relevant words and phrases like, That’s scribbling, Pass the gold pencil, I drew a heart, and placed them in the ambient music. I am interested in extending this experiment by combining the sound of drawing with the sound of drumming. From my experience, drawing and drumming are probably the two artistic things children relate to most!Rhythm, Rhythm, Rhythm is made from three examples of drumming. The first is an exercise at the Gemeinschaftsunterkunft where children explored the musical quality of their speaking voice. This very raw opening shows the kids punctuating the rhythm of their speech patterns by speaking and drumming. The second part is a young girl showing me how she drums and claps her hands in a very special way, and the third section is all the found percussion objects played and sampled. The ambient sounds are again derived from morphing various recordings from the Berlin Phonogram-Archive Sound Files.
American Academy fellow project: The Gamblers- The Zama Zama Miners of Southern Africa. Brody created the sound design and composed music for the installation.
Both as an improvisor and film performer. The film is featured as well as live performances at the Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin. More information to come.
The music/video installation and live performance of Fear of Music, Trust in Twelve will be announced soon. Brody’s involvement was as a composer and producer in the studio recording. More information to come!
The collaboration with world Arnold Dreyblatt involved creating a score for his sound-composition and conduction in the video shoot. See description below.
Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne composition commission collaboration with pianist, Michael Wilhelmi and live electronics artist, Daniel Dorsch. The premier was at the Vienna Theater Festival (Wiener Festwochen 2019). Performances were in France, Austria, and Berlin: Radial System. Photographer: Valentine Solé
Music selections from unreleased full length cinema film. (Cuts to show music composition only, not content) General info hidden for now. For private use only. (Premier estimated: 2023)
Humboldt Forum Berlin Museum Documentary (2023) (Cuts to show music only) Directed by Charlotte Jansen
Sound Art Experiment composing with random noises. 2022)
Bauhaus Art Film commissioned for the Weimar Bauhaus Festival 2019 Project leader, Yasmina Budenz
Ambient music example, part of Humboldt Forum Museum project (Opening 2023)
Opera film selections from Êtes-vous amoureux ? Directed by Kevin Barz (Premier 2020)Demokratische
Sinfonie shows real time orchestral composition with language. Directed by Kevin Barz
