Paul Brody is an American trumpeter, composer, sound installation artist, and writer based in Berlin, Germany. His work explores the relationship between the spoken word and melody through performance, composition, radio art, and sound installations. Brody leads his klezmer-jazz band, Sadawi and has collaborated with artists as diverse as John Zorn, Wim Wenders, and Barry White. He is a regular member of the avant-garde theater troupe of Hungarian-born director David Marton. Citing influences from Joseph Beuys, Charles Ives, Samuel Beckett, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, along with the story and folklore collecting traditions of Studs Terkel and Alan Lomax, Brody uses oral history to create word and sound-orientated narratives from documentary material. “A story is a melody and a melody is a story,” Brody explained in an interview with Der Tagesspiegel. His installation work generally examines the relationship between voice-melody and identity and the notion of home. Brody believes that while words carry one meaning, the voice-melody can be heard as carrying its own independent narrative. Voices speaking one language with the melody of another language contain infinitely more complex parallel narratives. In addition, the voice-melody reveals both impersonal and personal information: origin, family history, travels, but also emotional state and physical condition. This event was cosponsored by McIntire Department of Music, James Dunton Gift (Jazz Program), UVA Jewish Studies Program, the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, the Center for German Studies, the Dept. of Germanic Languages and Literatures, the Drama Department, the Creative Writing Program, the Anthropology Department, and the Linguistics Program.
Visit: http://paulbrody.net