Born and raised in Windom, MN, young Maria Schneider was already studying piano and music theory at age five. For thirteen years, she studied with Evelyn Butler, a Chicago jazz pianist who had relocated to Windom; hearing Butler play stride piano captured the five-year-old’s attention, and from that point on, she was hooked on music. “…It was almost like The Wizard of Oz, when everything changes into color,” Schneider recalls. “I could almost see images floating above her as she played.” Schneider enrolled at the University of Minnesota to study music theory, initially without any real sense of where her studies were going. An experience in her college dorm directed her more specifically toward jazz: “I was steeped in stride piano, but I hadn’t heard any modern jazz—I thought jazz hadn’t developed past the swing era,” she says. “This kid heard me playing an old [Duke] Ellington record. He loaned me some jazz albums by people like Herbie Hancock, John Coltrane, and McCoy Tyner. I listened to those and my head started spinning.” Her course was further steered by her studies with Dominick Argento (orchestration) and Paul Fetler (advanced counterpoint), who encouraged Schneider to compose for the university concert band. She also notes having an epiphany when seeing the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis: “Here was jazz music being played on the stage of a concert hall by a huge band on tour. A light bulb went on that this could be a career for me, although it seemed impossible to make a living as a composer.” 

After completing her degree at the University of Minnesota and spending a semester at the University of Miami, Schneider enrolled at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and was awarded master’s degree in jazz writing and contemporary media in 1985. Moving to New York City, she received a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant to study with composer/arranger/trombonist Bob Brookmeyer; yet, to make ends meet, she worked eight years as a music copyist, using calligraphy skills she learned from Argento at Minnesota. After a while she became a copyist and assistant for composer/arranger Gil Evans’ assistant, a partnership that resulted in their collaboration on the music for the movie The Color of Money and Sting's 1987 European tour. After Evan’s death in 1988, she began putting her own orchestra together, as well as conducting the Gil Evans Orchestra, which she led in a 1993 performance at the Spoleto Music Festival.

The Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra was launched in 1993, and played weekly for five years at Visiones in Greenwich Village. Throughout the 90s, the MSO performed at festivals and halls throughout the world; Schneider received numerous commissions for compositions from major orchestra and jazz bands, including Jazz at Lincoln Center. She also received a grant from Doris Duke to compose a work for dance in collaboration with Pilobolus, which was performed at the American Dance Festival at Kennedy Center. Throughout her career, Schneider has conducted and/or arranged for Ivan Lins, Toots Thielmans, John Faddis, Miles Davis, Wallace Roney, and David Sanborn, among others. She’s even arranged for the rock group Phish.

Maria Schneider’s recorded output has been greeted with rave reviews and a long list of awards: Her debut recording, Evanescence, received 1995 Grammy nominations for large ensemble and single instrumental composition. Coming About (1996) and Allegresse (2000) both received Grammy nominations and JJA Awards for composition and big band arranger. Allegresse received Time and Billboard Top Ten honors—which include all genres.  Then Hunter College (NYC) commissioned two compositions, “Concert in the Garden” and “Sky Blue.”  While working on the first piece, the composer read Mexican Nobel Laureate poet Octavio Paz’s poem, “Concert in the Garden.” The poem evoked for Schneider memories of childhood in southwestern Minnesota and inspired her music. Naming the new composition (and album) Concert in the Garden, she noted that, “When I create a piece, I don’t just sit down and write. Sometimes I’ll write some music, and all of a sudden those musical ideas attach themselves to a memory from my life.”

Concert in the Garden not only won CD of the Year at the Jazz Journalists Awards, but also the 2004 Downbeat Critic's Poll and Reader's Poll. Noted Gregory Robb of Jazz Improv, “Although music writers have rampaged to find the penultimate adjectives, there are not enough words in a single lexicon to adequately praise Concert in the Garden for its musicality. Maria Schneider has composed her way to a singular orchestral writing achievement." When Concert in the Garden won a Grammy in 2005 (Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album), it became the first Grammy winner available only on the Internet and the first production of the web collective ArtistShare. As a pioneer in this artist-run company which sells “shares” in production to the public, Schneider noted a new freedom for artists:  “When you’re not in a record store, your music doesn’t have to be categorized,” Schneider says. “You can speak directly to the people who are attracted to your music.” 

Through ArtistShare, in 2005 Schneider re-released the band’s only live recording, distributed in 2000, Days of Wine and Roses: Live at Jazz Standard. Although her composition on that album, “Journey Home,” was nominated for 2006 Grammy, Schneider asked that it be withdrawn since it had been previously released. But the next Grammy was not far behind. In 2007, Schneider released her latest ArtistShare project, Sky Blue, the title track fulfilling the second Hunter College commission. And it was another composition, “Cerulean Skies” (commissioned by the New Crowned Hope Festival), that took Grammy honors last month. 

It’s seldom that a bandleader of Maria Schneider’s stature comes to town, even more rare that her visit can be enjoyed at no charge!  Hear the MacJazz Big Band under Schneider’s direction as they offer a program of Schneider originals and other works. 

Janet Wallace Fine Art Center is located at 1600 Grand Av, St. Paul; concert begins at 8 pm, free. For more information, call 651-696-6808.