By Patrick Cole - Nov 20, 2012 2:01 AM GMT-0300
Jazz composer Maria Schneider struggled with her Mozart piano lessons as a child. That might well have been her first push toward a different end of music.
Schneider, 51, has been ranked as jazz’s top composer and arranger in the DownBeat magazine Critics poll for the past 3 years. Her Maria Schneider Orchestra has been the poll’s top big-band choice each year since 2008. Her 2004 album, “Concert in the Garden,” was the first CD sold only on the Internet to win a Grammy Award.
Maria Schneider with her orchestra at the Jazz Standard in 2009. Schneider, who began taking piano lessons as a child, found her niche as a composer and conductor while studying music theory at the University of Minnesota. Photographer: Dina Regine via Bloomberg
Maria Schneider will conduct her orchestra at New York's Jazz Standard this week for the ensemble's annual Thanksgiving residency. Photographer: Jimmy and Dena Katz via Bloomberg
She also figured out how to get paid decently -- a challenge in the big-band world where gig payments are sliced many ways. Her recordings on ArtistShare, an online music site, allow her to generate income from fans who help finance a CD as well as from record sales.
Schneider leads her band tonight through Sunday at New York’s Jazz Standard. She talked to me last week during a break from a record-mixing session.
Cole: How did you discover music?
Schneider: A woman named Evelyn Butler moved to Windom,Minnesota, where I was born, from Chicago. She started teaching piano lessons, and I was the incredible beneficiary of her move. There was no division between classical and jazz for her. I was 8 years old when I wrote my first song.
Horrifying Mozart
Cole: Why didn’t you stick with the piano?
Schneider: I listened to a young girl play Mozart who had won a competition. She was perfection! It was horrifying for me to watch. I said, “OK, I can toss that off my list.” I don’t know that girl’s name or where she went. She probably lives in my building in New York! You know how those things go.
Cole: Why were you intimidated by Mozart’s piano works?
Schneider: Mozart is so hard to play and play well. It’s seemingly simple, but it’s very, very difficult to play. You can’t hide when you play Mozart. Back when I started with Mrs. Butler, I knew I didn’t have great technique. I knew I was a musician, but I wasn’t a performer.
Cole: You studied music theory at the University of Minnesota and later worked with the legendary Gil Evans and Bob Brookmeyer. What did you learn from them?
Read more on http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-20/nasty-mozart-pushes-maria-schneider-into-jazz-composing.html
0 Comments:
Post a Comment