New Frontiers in Music:
One on One with Maria Schneider

Friday, January 11, 2008
Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage
1608 Walnut Street, 18th Floor
Philadelphia, PA  19103

Maria Schneider’s music has been described as evocative, majestic, magical, heart-stoppingly gorgeous, and beyond categorization. PMP hosted the Grammy Award-winning jazz composer and bandleader for an intimate discussion about her work with music writer and radio producer Eugene Holley. The talk coincided with the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra’s regional debut at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (presented by the PMA’s Art After Five series) on the evening of January 11th.

About Maria Schneider
Born in Windom, Minnesota, Schneider arrived in New York City in 1985 after studies at the University of Minnesota, the University of Miami and the Eastman School of Music. She immediately sought out Bob Brookmeyer to study composition, and at the same time became an assistant to Gil Evans, working on various projects with him.

The Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra came into being in 1993, appearing at Visiones in Greenwich Village every Monday night for a stretch of five years. Subsequently, her orchestra has performed at festivals and concert halls across Europe as well as in Brazil and Macau. She’s received numerous commissions and invites from American and European orchestras, guest conducting in Brazil, Italy, Portugal, France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Slovenia, Austria, Canada, Scotland, Australia, Greenland and Iceland, as well as across the U.S.

Schneider has had a distinguished recording career as well. Her debut recording, Evanescence, was nominated for two 1995 Grammy Awards. Her second and third recordings, Coming About and Allégresse, were also nominated for Grammys. Allégresse was chosen by both Time and Billboard in their Top Ten Recordings of 2000, inclusive of all genres of music.

Concert in the Garden, released only through her Web site (an ArtistShare® site), was a watershed in her career when she won the 2005 Grammy Award for “Best Large Ensemble Album” and became the first Grammy winning recording with Internet-only sales. It also received Jazz Album of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Awards and the Downbeat Critics Poll. Both also awarded her Composer of the Year and Arranger of the Year, and the Jazz Journalists also named her group Large Jazz Ensemble of the Year.

Her newest fan-funded ArtistShare® recording, Sky Blue, was released in July 2007 and received unanimous praise. With this project, Schneider continues to deepen her relationship with her fans through sharing her creative process and utilizing their participation to fuel her work. The composition of the centerpiece work, “Cerulean Skies,” as well as the album’s entire recording process was fully documented through her website www.mariaschneider.com.

“Maria Schneider's orchestral jazz is about feeling. Like Wayne Shorter, she somehow expresses compassion through tones.” – The New York Times

“Like the music of her most obvious predecessors -- Duke Ellington and Gil Evans -- Schneider's reaches toward a significant new level of imagination, making hers the first truly novel approach to big jazz band composition of the new century.” – The Los Angeles Times

“She now has become entrenched among the ranks of America's leading composers. ... For Schneider, the question is no longer whether she can sustain the heights she has attained on earlier recordings; it is now how far her musical journey will take her.” – Downbeat * * * * *

About Eugene Holley
Eugene Holley, Jr. is a freelance music writer and radio producer. He contributes to All About Jazz and Amazon.com, and has been published in Ebonyjet.com, Down Beat, JazzTimes, Hispanic, The New York Times Book Review, Philadelphia Weekly, Vibe, and The Village Voice. He has written over 15 CD liner notes, including The Complete Modern Jazz Quartet Prestige and Pablo Recordings, and contributed essays in The Da Capo Jazz & Blues Lover's Guide to the United States, and Jump For Joy: Jazz at Lincoln Center Celebrates the Ellington Centennial, 1899-1999. He served as Music/Program Director for WCLK-FM  in Atlanta from 1990 to 1992, co-produced the NPR documentary series Dizzy's Diamond in 1992, and two installments of PRI's Duke Ellington Centennial Radio Project in 1999. He lives in Wilmington, Delaware.