Vera Brandes, born on 22 May 1956 in Cologne, is a German music producer and music researcher. 

At the age of 17, she began organising jazz concerts and tours, including a tour with Ronnie Scott’s trio. In 1974, she initiated the concert series ‘New Jazz in Cologne’, which included the legendary ‘Köln Concert’ by Keith Jarrett on 24 January 1975. Although the pianist wanted to cancel the concert due to an inadequate grand piano, Brandes was able to persuade him to perform anyway. 

In 1977, she founded the record label CMP together with the concert promoter Kurt Renker, which released albums by artists such as Nucleus, Charlie Mariano and Jeremy Steig. In 1979, she founded the label Wind Records, on which she presented, among others, the artist Stephan Micus. In 1980, she founded the label veraBra records, where she was the sole producer and publisher and released, among others, the albums of Andreas Vollenweider. In 1984, she launched the label Intuition Records, which, as a sister label of Blue Note Records, introduced international artists and world music stars to a worldwide audience. In total, she produced and released over 350 albums, including works by Astor Piazzolla, Steps Ahead and Mikis Theodorakis. She also organised a large number of festivals (including the One World Music Festival) and tours. 

After a serious car accident in 1995, Brandes turned to research into the medical effects of music. From 2004 to 2017, she headed the Research Program for MusicMedicine at the Paracelsus Medical University in Salzburg and conducted studies on the effect of music on depression and psychosomatic disorders.  

She developed special sound technologies for audio cures for depression, burnout syndrome and sleep disorders. Brandes is a founding member of the International Association for Music & Medicine (IAMM) and has been its chair of conferences since 2009. 

In 2023 and 2024, the story of Brandes organizing the “Köln Concert” of Keith Jarrett as told in Ido Fluk’s script was turned into the feature film KÖLN75 played by a cast of Germany’s most prominent movie stars. KÖLN75 premiered at the 2025 Berlinale, the Berlin International Film Festival on February, 16th, 2025, followed by 10 sold out screenings during the festival. The official cinema premiere was celebrated in Cologne on March, 6th with seven subsequent local premieres in Germany as well as in Vienna and Zuerich. KÖLN75 was released in over 140 cinemas in Germany, Switzerland and Austria on March, 13th and enjoyed the highest number of viewers per screening in German movie theaters in only four days.

Brandes has published numerous scientific articles and co-authored several books, including ‘Leben im Rhythmus – Die heilende Kraft der Klänge, Schwingungen und Gefühle’ (2006) and ‘Music That Works – Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Potential of Music in Medicine and Therapy’ (Springer 2009). 

Her work has contributed significantly to a deeper understanding of the healing power of music and to the development of innovative music-based therapy methods.