The Town Hall Presents: THE MARIA SCHNEIDER ORCHESTRA - 30th Anniversary Celebration -- Sat. Nov 23 at 8pm

The big band is jazz’s symphony orchestra, a powerful instrument offering a broad palette of colors, textures, and rhythmic and tonal possibilities. Few have written for it better this century than composer, arranger, and bandleader Maria Schneider. Well-designed, expressive, and substantial, Schneider’s work often blurs distinctions between music genres and styles. It has earned her a shelf full of critics’ prizes, the distinction of being named an “NEA Jazz Master,” seven GRAMMY Awards, primarily in jazz but also in classical, and for her collaboration with the late British singer and songwriter David Bowie (a GRAMMY for Best Arrangement, Instruments, and Vocals for her work on "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)".

Her orchestra’s 2020 release, Data Lords, was a Pulitzer Finalist.

Remarkably, she has done it while navigating the trying economics of jazz. In an era when keeping together a trio is a challenge, Schneider has been able to hold on to her 18-piece orchestra and, in the process, turn it into a one-of-a-kind instrument.

To honor the extraordinary career of this Minnesota native, The Town Hall will present The Maria Schneider Orchestra - 30th Anniversary Celebration on Saturday, November 23rd.

For Schneider, “it just felt like a time of reflection.”

“My first recording came out 30 years ago,” she says. “And this year, we produced Decades, a three-LP box set retrospective, with extensive liner notes that I wrote that look back with a keen view of what was going on — hindsight is always 20/20, as they say.”

“I’m feeling a change. I don't know what's next,” she continues. “And I've felt that this is almost like an era. Maybe it also has to do with losing both my parents, and so it's about everything that culminates in this music: the support of family, my upbringing, and where I came from. This chapter is closed, and it felt right to look at it and highlight so many people who made the band what it is now – the many people who inspired the music I write.”

https://youtu.be/uhl1ZvTPrCk?si=BN6naNPIpgTc-9AB

The concert will open with “Evanescence,” written in memory of her mentor, Gil Evans. It was her first commission and the title track of her first album. “That piece holds a lot of significance for me,” she notes. “It’s the foundation.”

The other works “will represent different periods of my work and the influences from those periods: nature, art, my battle with big data companies,” she says. “I always give a little background before we play a piece because so much of the music comes directly from my life. Growing up in rural Minnesota certainly gave me a pastoral side that I will represent at this concert. I’ve never been one to write music based mostly on simply trying to create music. Life experience has been largely the driver.”

Her writing shows a distinct way of musical storytelling, lyrical and direct, and the subject matter can stretch from bird watching to her battles with Big Tech.

Consider pieces in the program such as “Sputnik,” which won a GRAMMY Award for Best Instrumental Composition, and “Don’t Be Evil,” which mocks Google. Both tracks are from her GRAMMY-winning Data Lords. The recording is a powerful, sharply articulated expression of her position as a critic of data collection practices and what those practices have done to society. Schneider has not only been very vocal and written about her concerns but has also testified before Congress.

“American Crow,” a new, unrecorded piece in the program, further illustrates her approach.

“It speaks to political polarization,” notes Schneider. “It's a piece that expresses my deep concern and sadness that the effects of big data are so extreme that we’re no longer capable of listening to each other anymore. It’s perfect to express this through jazz, the ultimate listening art. The piece reflects on a time when people could disagree yet still speak to each other, listen to each other, and still even love one another. The improviser listens and responds to a rather pastoral theme reflective of a past I remember, but then the piece devolves into where we are today, everyone spewing at each other from their own echo chamber. It ends with a longing to find our way back. “

Schneider grew up in Windom, a small town in Southwest Minnesota (population 4,798 according to the 2020 census), and studied with Evelyn Butler, a stride, boogie-woogie, and classical pianist from Chicago. She describes her as an “extraordinary world-class musician” who moved to Windom for family reasons. Her approach to teaching opened a broad, generous view of music to Schneider. “It was like, ‘OK, let's play this Cole Porter song, and here's how you dress it up. OK. Let's now work on the “Bach Two-Part Invention.’ So I grew up with both things integrated into my own life.”

A self-described “lousy piano player,” Schneider “almost quit music” while in college because, as a classical composition student with a love of melody and harmony, she was coming into a classical music world infatuated with atonality. “But at my school, there was a big band, and my classical teacher said, ‘You know, your music sounds so influenced by jazz, and you're listening to many jazz composers, why don't you write something for the big band?’ And I did — and never stopped since,” she says, laughing.