Rodney Whittenberg

Rodney Whittenberg

Rodney Whittenberg is an Emmy-Award winning composer and an Emmy- nominated film producer. He is also a multi-instrumentalist, audio engineer, sound designer, music producer, writer, podcast producer, film director, editor, producer, educator, Lay Universal Unitarian preacher and motivational speaker. Rodney is the founder of Melodyvision, a full-service media production company that serves as a platform for him to bring fresh perspectives to each client and project while adding value that results in creative solutions for often complex problems.

Rodney has produced and directed the award-winning documentary Voices of Ages and produced and co-directed the Emmy nominated Portraits of Professional Caregivers - their Passion, their Pain, and the award-winning documentary Angels and Saints - Eros and Awe.

As a film composer, Rodney has written music for over thirty-four films and TV shows, as well as countless dance performances. His projects include: Code Name: Ayalon, Anthony Bourdain’s A Cooks Tour, PBS’s POV Documentary The Camden 28, The Spanish American War (co-written with Time for Three) for the History Channel, He also directed the orchestral film shoots for Beethoven to Beijing, which was nominated for the Library of Congress’ Ken Burns Prize.

Rodney has taught music and audio production courses at Lincoln University, University of the Arts, Drexel University, and Philadelphia Community College, as well as graduate level film courses at Rosemont College and an audio production course for animation at Jefferson University. He has been a guest lecturer at Temple University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Franklin and Marshall College.

Programs:

• The Complicated Music Bond Between Blacks and Jews. This talk examines the integral relationships developed between Jews and Blacks in the music and recording industry; two groups persecuted for their race and religion, with one common goal. Rodney will share clips from his newest documentary, Blews and the Abstract Truth, featuring interviews and music from famous Black and Jewish musicians and executives from the recording industry.

  African Americans' contributions to the music industry from the 20th century to the present day, beginning with jazz, R&B, soul,  have shaped America's most popular music genres.  Through stories and film clips, featuring such artists as Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Dizzy Gillespie, Carole King and many more,  Rodney shares how Jewish musicians and record company executives collaborated with Black Artists to bring their music into popular culture, and often risked their careers and even their lives to produce and perform Black Music in the entertainment industry over the past 100 years. Their partnership helped America find its musical soul.