Jack Body

Who is Jack Body?

Jack Body is a New Zealand composer, photographer, artist and ethnomusicologist.

While his best known composition is the 1975 theme to "Close to Home", a New Zealand soap opera, his music as been performed by Lontano, the Kronos Quartet, ARC, the New Zealand String Quartet, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. His opera "Alley" was featured in the 1998 New Zealand International Festival of the Arts.

From 1980 to 2009, he was a lecturer in the Department of Music at Victoria University of Wellington. Brody began editing Waiteata Music Press in 1980, publishing scores and recordings of New Zealand composers, and has curated and promoted multiple festivals and music shows in New Zealand. His recordings as an ethnomusicologist include Music for Sale: Street Musicians of Yogyakarta, Music of Madura and Jemblung: Sung Narrative Traditions.