Dear Visitor!
My work often focuses on the sonic terrain between music and spoken word. A melody is a story and a story is a melody.
I consider this a sub-genre. That’s why this new website is divided into three main categories: sound Installation, radio, and music/performance, which includes composer commissions, performances, and recordings. Enjoy carousing through the listening samples and broadcasts!
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Brody’s sound installation wonderfully captures moments of intimacy… Süddeutsche Zeitung
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
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
Humboldt Forum interactive sound installation, Thousand Worlds openning 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.
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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
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STORYWALK GLEISDREIECK-documentary art as permanent fixture of the park. Produced in German, English, Turkish (Leichte Sprache in German is comming)
Link to Gruen Berlin website for more informantion and to hear the storywalk please click on the link: //www.campus-stadt-natur.de/parks-erfahrungsraeume/park-am-gleisdreieck/storywalk-gleisdreieck
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.
SPRACHMELODIE-KLANGFARBENMELODIE (SPEECHMELODY-SOUNDCOLORMELODY)
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
Tomas Venclova reading Into the Fire
Carolyn Gammon reading The Warble by
Photo: Tom Bresemann
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.
The Fringe Sound of Berlin
What is the sound of Berlin? How does the mentality of the city of upheaval effect its artists? How do the artists hear their city?
Production, writing, composition: Paul Brody
Webern from the Inside and Outside
A Sound Installation by Paul Brody
Videos and Explanation:
Video 1: Artist’s Talk at Boulez Saal.
Video 2: Sound installation.
Video 3: Selection of Videos from the 12 tone contributors.
Webern from the Inside and Outside
A Sound Installation by Paul Brody
(English translation of Webern letter fragments below)
PART I
Webern From the Inside
Fragments: Eine Andere Art von Liebe
The Webern sound installation grew out of Brody’s term as an Artist in Residence at the University of Virginia, when he coached students on combining audio and written archival material. Brody developed a presentation in which he mixed recorded passages of the letters of Anton Webern with fragments of the composer’s music processed in a sampler.
To Brody, Webern’s compositions contain a direct emotionality in their brevity and in their use of sound colors and textures as his primary compositional elements. He selected fragments from Webern’s letters that convey the breadth of the composer’s work: an artistic hunger for the depths of sound and a personal yearning for acceptance by those around him.
Brody recorded the letters and transcribed the speaker’s voice-melody–a method he has developed for using the musicality of a person’s voice as a base for compositions. The tone rows Brody derives with the technique are strongly influenced by the twelve-tone music of Webern and his teacher Schoenberg.
In this project Brody’s voice-melody composition is a kind of musical sketch–akin to a pencil drawing that can be filled in by musical colors and textures extracted from Webern’s works. While the spoken fragments of the letters create a narrative, the looped and sampled music conveys the essence of the composer’s sonic imagination.
A special thanks to Dr. Simone Hohmaier from the Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung Preußischer Kulturbesitz for helping research Webern’s letters.
Musicians: Asher Biemann- voice, Cesar Lerner- accordion, Rachel Susser- flute, Joel Rubin- clarinet, Gabriella Strümpel- cello, Paul Brody- trumpet, trombone, sampler.
PART II
Webern From the Outside
A twelve-tone row travels the world
In the second part of the Webern sound installation, Brody focuses on the concept of borders and space in relation to his music. Webern experienced the radical shift in musical boundaries that marked the first decades of the 20th century and later the shattering of socio-political borders after the two world wars. Webern dedicated the last 20 years of his life to the narrow confines of the twelve-tone row, which Brody explores as a kind of sonic home.
Brody sent Webern’s quintessential twelve-tone row from the Concerto for Nine Instruments, Op. 24 to musicians in places as far-flung as Buenos Aires, San Francisco, Warsaw, and Berlin, where Brody has lived for 25 years. He asked musicians ranging from a Toronto grammar school choir to established soloists such as Elliott Sharp and Roy Nathanson, to interpret the row.
The assignment: use any instrument at any tempo, but finish in less than a minute. The submissions included everything from guitars and cellos to a tractor, a telephone, and a truck horn. While Brody’s initial intention was to play the compositions sequentially, he found that some worked together harmonically and others formed a dialogue by overlapping.
Sound Installation Artist/Composer: Paul Brody
Brody’s recordings have been produced by John Zorn for Tzadik Records. His sound installations have been featured at the Jewish Museum Berlin and the Opera Department of the Munich Kammerspiele, where he was 2017 Artist in Residence. In 2018 he was a guest artist at the University of Rhode Island and Artist in Residence at the University of Virginia. His documentary radio pieces can be heard on Germany’s WDR. For more of Brody’s work, please visit www.paulbrody.net
Part II Contributors in order of appearance
Contributors In order of appearance (Many musical contributions. have been combined together)
Concerto for 9 Instruments 12 tone row excerpt (Pierre Boulez Ensemble)
Toronto school choir workshop, Toronto, Canada
Petteri Pitko, harpsichord, Helsinki, Finnland
Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra Mitglieder, Berlin, Germany
Jannis Lilge- Baglamas, eine griechische Oktavbouzuki, Berlin
Hassan Akkouch-voice, Munich
Finnish Baroque Orchestra- Helsinki, Finnland
Michael Rodach-guitar, Berlin, Germany
The Embassy Singers, Berlin
Signumquartett- Cologne, Germany
Elliott Sharp-guitar, New York, USA
Roy Nathanson-Sax, New York, USA
Pamela Stickney-Theremin, Vienna, Austria
Jan Roder-bass, Berlin
Christian Kögel-guitar, Berlin
Mark Rubin-bass, Mandoline, New Orleans, USA
Melina Moguilevsky- singer, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Jan Tengler-bass, Cologne, Germany
Joely & Oliver- Liedermacher, Munich
e la luna ? Italian jazz, Berlin
Maximilian Gallup- electronics, Berlin
Adrian Receanu – caval, fluier, clarinet, Paris, France
Gerald Meier-Trombone, Berlin
Bartosz Mikołaj Nazaruk-drums, Warsaw, Poland
Daniel Dorsch-Ele Meta Phone, Berlin
Aubrey Beal- Sampler, Alabama, USA.
Sebastian Carewe Piano Trio, Berlin
Verena Wehling-viola, Berlin
Milena Kipfmüller & Klaus Janek, voice, electronic, bass, Berlin,
Joel Rubin-clarinet, Virginia, USA
Jay Rizzetto-trumpet, California, USA
Raven Chacon- guitar, Navajo Nation, USA
Vivien Lee-voice, Hong Kong/Berlin
Lukas Ligeti- percussion, Johannesburg, South Africa
Julie Sassoon-piano, Berlin
Elsa Kopf- singer/songwriter, Paris, France
Mae McKenna, singer, Coatbridge, Scotland
Ilya Shneyveys, synthesiser, Riga, Latvia
Holger Marks (tenor) & Philip Mayers (piano) Berlin
…….
VIDEOS
Daniel Dorsch-Ele Meta Phone, Berlin,
Raven Chacon -guitar, Navajo Nation, USA
Hazel Leach’s Composer’s Orchestra Berlin, Germany
Oli Bott-percussion, Berlin, Germany
Brasstastix, trombone choir, Berlin
Vivien Lee-voice, Hong Kong/Berlin
Ilya Shneyveys, synthesiser, Riga, Latvia
Milena Kipfmüller & Klaus Janek, voice, electronic, bass, Berlin, GermanyRoman Josef Britschgi-bass, art, Wilen im Kanton Obwalden,Switzerland
Jan Roder-bass, Berlin
Pamela Stickney-Theremin, Vienna, Austria
Elsa Kopf- singer/songwriter, Paris, France
Michael Rodach-guitar, Berlin, Germany
Christian Kögel-guitar, Berlin
e la luna ? Italian jazz, Berlin
Webern’s Letter Fragments Translated into English
-Of course I always think of Mahler. One can learn a lot from him. I’d like to be able to concentrate on my own things. I do not want to live a biography – but think of Beethoven. And then another 1000 reasons come to mind. I can’t name all of them (health, my daily routine, family). But I’m often confused – to influenced by ambition… ambition! I have to let go of this earthly pursuit.
-It was wonderful in Berlin. I don’t now if I wrote to you about it. The performance beautiful! And the piece, the sound, the composition, the darkness, it was glorious!
-It’s terrible that I can never talk to Schoenberg. Those were the best hours. When I went for a walk with him. Especially this time of year, in September.
-I can’t find anything that’s bright, nothing that comforts me. And that makes me feel fruitless. It makes me sick. And that’s why I have to give up the theater. It’s a mystery to me how Mahler could stand it. Maybe because he started at a young age.
-Are you getting together with Kokoschka? You should meet. I think such a friendship is wonderful. It would be great if all the people who are doing things in this city could get together. Schoenberg, Klimt, Altenberg, Loos, Kraus, us, Kokoschka and many others. I mean, we are nothing. But we still belong to it.
-Schoenberg once said to me that there is a completely different kind of love than this literary orientated passion. There’s a calm …mostly tender… loving relationship. This is how I felt it … and never the other way. d.h. felt it differently … with sadness… One can’t say how Berg felt it. But it’s with Mahler as well. Just think of the tenderness in his music: “in the darkness of her hot gaze the recollection of her heart resonates mournfully. It is for the sake of dying, for dying.
Êtes-vous amoureux ? Demo trailer.
Opera based on interviews and voice-melody.
Brody is involved in three inclusion projects through the Kulturleben Berlin association (Verein), largely financed by Aktion Mensch. His main project curating art events for the program, Bühne frei! … schafft Chancen für Künstler:innen mit Behinderung (Clear the stage! … creating opportunities for artists with health conditions or impairments) This finances and helps to organize accomplished artists of all discaplines.
The biggest work so far has been with the art department of the well known Ramba Zamba Theater in Berlin. The next year has a number exciting events: a performative video with author and Afro-german queer actives, Katharina Oguntoye, a collaborative dance and painting exhibit featuring the visually impaired artist, Silja Korn and braille inspired artist, Jac Carley (also in collaboration with the Ernst Busch University of Theatre Arts Berlin). There ia also an electro-acoustic and theater workshop!
,https://kulturleben-berlin.de/buehne-frei-schafft-chancen-fuer-kuenstlerinnen-mit-behinderung/
Ogentoye is writing an autobiographical text to be performed as a wheel chair-bed dance. It will include interviews with other people in the inclusion community.
Premier, GRIPS Theater, Berlin, July, 2025 (Text to be translated in English soon!)
Wie klingt eigentlich die Berliner Schnauze? Im Frühlingskonzert des Utopia Orchesters können kleine und große Konzertbesucher*innen dies auf höchst musikalische und unterhaltsame Weise erkunden. Gespielt wird die Berliner Suite, ein sinfonisches Werk, das der amerikanische Komponist und sound artist, Paul Brody nach Anregungen der Musiker*innen eigens für das Utopia Orchester geschrieben hat.
Das Utopia Orchester gehört zur Werkstatt Utopia, dem inklusiven Musikprojekt des Vereins KulturLeben Berlin. Es lädt Menschen mit und ohne Behinderung zum gemeinsamen Musizieren ein. Im Mittelpunkt steht die Liebe zur Musik und die Freude am musikalischen Zusammenspiel.
The inclusion band focuses on learning standard jazz/rock repertoire and improvisation.
Composition based on the voice-patterns of selected debates in German parlaiment. See youtube for more info.
Interview with director, Kevin Barz
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!
The Music of Yiddish Blessings and Curses installation was a collaboration with the Ashkenaz Festival in Toronto. Paul Brody interviewed Yiddish speakers throughout the city to explore their favourite curses and blessings, as well as the stories and memories behind them.
Brody was expecting that the blessings and curses would reveal a treasure of Yiddish culture — the food, the suffering, the humour and irony — but what he also found was an underlying Yiddish vocal pattern to narrating hope and community. He discovered that as the Yiddish speakers, young and old, invoked the traditional Yiddish sayings, the emotionality in their voices revealed the musicality of ‘speaking Yiddish.’ Brody recalls:
I became fascinated by how my interviewee’s voice-melody often shifted from conversational to a melodic, almost singing voice, through the uttering of a blessing or a curse.
Brody uses these voice-melodies as a compositional basis for the project, blending documentary and artistic interpretations. In a broader sense, the sound installation explores the dialectic of traditional and spontaneity, formulaic and the fluctuating, sacred and secular.
Yiddish blessings and curses reveal a musical language that is uniquely Yiddish. During her interview, Miriam Borden explains, The words might not be in Yiddish, but the way of talking is Yiddish.
Drawing on his work with both contemporary Jewish music and radio documentaries, Brody creates a five-part suite for his sound installation: 1. Talking Yiddish 2. Bagel Hell 3. Curse Composition 4 Feeling Family 5 Belly Blessing
The final Toronto exhibition will add two more dimensions. Brody is asking musicians around the world to respond to his recordings of Yiddish blessings and curses with their own short musical improvisations based on the the voice-melodies of Yiddish blessings and curses. Visual contributions will come from Miriam Borden, a doctoral student at the Centre of Jewish Studies
at the University of Toronto. Portraits of the people who were interviewed for the project and key phrases will be displayed graphically.
Musicians on Part I Berlin-Vienna-Toronto klezmer scene: Alan Bern-accordion, Christian Dawid-clarinet, Daniel Weltlinger-violin, Peck-Kubaczek, Cynthia-cello, Benjy Fox-Rosen-bass & voice, Paul Brody-trumpet, trombone, Lorie Wolf-drums
Musicians on Part II who interpret the voice-voice-melodies
Dan Blacksberg -trombone, Daniel Kahn -voice, Joshua Horowitz -accordion, Brian Katz -guitar, Marilyn Lerner -piano, Frank London -trumpet, Sasha Lurje -voice, Benjy Fox Rosen -bass/voice
Cookie -Segelstein-violin, Eric Stein -Mandolin, Lorie Wolf -drums
Two generations of Toronto Yiddish speakers interviewed: Michael Wex, Shirley Kumove, Jack Newman, Helen Smolkin , Belva Spiel, Jordon Chad, Sarah Katz, Miriam Borden
The video from the concerts are being edited and will be posted soon!
Photo by Michael Kremer, SnapArt
Curating Inclusive Art projects
Berlin there a huge push towards cultivating inclusive awareness. Kulturlaben Berlin asked me to curate inclusive art events and workshops with theater, music, visual art. The exhibit featured the art department from Berlin’s legendary, RambaZamba Theater, Jac Carley, and visually impaired artist, Silja Korn. Ms. Korn and Carely experimented with ways of working together as a seeing and visual impaired team. The RambaZamba group created amazingly expressive works by substituting standard paint brushes with branches, rope, leaves, and sticks! See the 2 videos below!Cu
Film composition commissoins
Richtungsweisend (2018) Bauhaus educational project art concept film acoustic-electric composition
Opéra national de Lorraine -Paul Brody sampler video
Two huge commissions back to back!
Like most operas, Les Voix de Nancy, is about out love. But rather than the usual tragic fate of grand figures, this opera stages the love stories of Nancy’s inhabitants who told their story of passion, joy, and sorry during the summer of 2019 and winter of 2020. From octogenarians dancing at the La Pépinièrepark to hipsters on a tinder date in the old town, the stories become the libretto of the opera. Composer, Paul Brody, known for creating art from spoken word and everyday sounds, alsofinds the melodies for the opera in the voices of the people interviewed. Les Voix de Nancyuses both the stories and the melodies of people living in the city. The love stories will unfold both on stage and though-out the opera house: foyers, hallways, even the stair wells. The audience takes on its own roll as voyeur, glimpsing the secret passions and dramas of their neighbors. Les Voix de Nancy is an opera by and for the people of Nancy. (Premier March 6, 20201)
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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