Currently Music Director of Longwood Opera and Accompanist of The Paul Madore Chorale, Jeffrey Brody pursues an active career as composer, conductor, vocal coach and collaborative pianist. Appointed to the musical staff of Seattle Opera in 1986, he has done the musical preparation of that company’s acclaimed production of Wagner’s “Ring”, serving as Assistant Conductor and Prompter. He has also done musical preparation for the Opera Company of Boston and Boston Lyric Opera, among others. Mr. Brody has been Music Director of Longwood Opera since 1998 and was appointed Musical Advisor of the Boston Wagner Society in 2005. He is presently Music Director and Organist of Park Avenue Congregational Church, Arlington.
His compositions include works for orchestra, chorus, chamber music and organ. They have been performed in Boston’s Symphony Hall, Jordan Hall, the Washington National Cathedral, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., the Virginia Waterfront International Arts Festival, the Venetian festival “la città, la musica e il sacro”, the Temple of the Shinji Kai in Shiga, Japan, and on National Public Radio.
Recent commissions include “Beowulf”, a Musical Legend for soloists, chorus and orchestra, written for performance in the Vienna Musikvereinsaal, as well as “Planetarium”, written for the Arlington-Belmont Chamber Chorus. Past seasons have brought performances of his Concerto for Organ and Orchestra with organist Berj Zamkochian and the State Symphony Orchestra of Lebanon, as well as the Vienna premiere of “Haec Dies”, for Organ, Strings and Timpani. Mr. Brody enjoys a most distinctive artistic relationship with the Salem Philharmonic Orchestra, with recent seasons bringing premieres under his baton of a Violin Concerto written for Maestro Alan Hawryluk, as well as a Concerto written for flutist Judith Braude. The 2007-8 season includes performances of his “Ave Maria” by The Paul Madore Chorale; the premiere of his orchestral suite, “At the Movies!”, by the Salem Philharmonic; and a performance of “Nigun”, by the Cape Ann Symphony.
A finalist in the 1999 European International Composers Competition, he has also received numerous ASCAP awards. Several of his commissioned choral and organ works have been released on compact disc on the AFKA ad SPC labels. Mr. Brody is a member of the International Siegfried Wagner Society; the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers; the National Association of Teachers of Singing; the American Guild of Organists; and the Boston Singers Resource, for which he has served as audition adjudicator. In honor of the many years of his artistic collaboration with the late Boston Symphony Orchestra organist, Berj Zamkochian, the Gomidas Organ Fund presented Mr. Brody with the baton used by Dr. Charles Munch, Music Director and Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1949-1962.
Currently Music Director of Longwood Opera and Accompanist of The Paul Madore Chorale, Jeffrey Brody pursues an active career as composer, conductor, vocal coach and collaborative pianist. Appointed to the musical staff of Seattle Opera in 1986, he has done the musical preparation of that company’s acclaimed production of Wagner’s “Ring”, serving as Assistant Conductor and Prompter. He has also done musical preparation for the Opera Company of Boston and Boston Lyric Opera, among others. Mr. Brody has been Music Director of Longwood Opera since 1998 and was appointed Musical Advisor of the Boston Wagner Society in 2005. He is presently Music Director and Organist of Park Avenue Congregational Church, Arlington.