Bill Milbrodt

Bill Milbrodt is a composer and creator of the "Car Music Project", a band that plays music on instruments made from car parts. The instruments have names like "exhaustaphone", "tank bass", "doorimba", "tube flute", and "percarsion". The band plays music that is written by Milbrodt and also does unique improvising in which the written music is played by some members of the band while other members improvise, sometimes several at one time.

Milbrodt won an Emmy Award in New York for a 1991 musical score he composed electronically for a short avant-garde video called "American Venus". He made his living mainly as a composer of music for commercial purposes, and as a sound designer, and did occasional performances for the Car Music Project. In 2005 he formed an ensemble called "The Car Music Project", with regular members/sidemen, for the purpose of performing on a regular basis.

Milbrodt is a self-taught composer. He studied Film Production at the New York University Film School, and graduated in 1977. His work reflects this visual background. He refers to some of his compositions as "sonic pantomimes", which might also be described as "musical sound stories", intended to tell stories using music and sound to convey visuals without any spoken words or lyrics.

During the fall of 2007, metal sculptor Ray Faunce III created 30 playable instruments for the Ford Motor Company in the United Kingdom for a television commercial for the 2008 European Ford Focus. He worked with Biscuit Filmworks and Ogilvy Advertising, designing the instruments for director Noam Murro. Milbrodt assembled a team of about 22 people to design and construct the instruments over a period of 7 weeks, working with Biscuit's Production Designer and the members of his band, the Car Music Project, to get them ready for a shoot on a soundstage at Universal Studios in early November, 2007. The commercial's music was composed by Craig Richey, performed on the Ray Faunce III instruments, and recorded at Capitol Records in Los Angeles. The Ray Faunce III instruments will begin the first leg of a European exhibit tour in the spring of 2008.