Jazz Pioneer Maria Schneider Makes Hunter College Home in Spring '04
Schneider to perform new work in first of four concerts at Kaye Playhouse
Date: January 12, 2004
Contact: Deborah Sack (deborah.sack@hunter.cuny.edu)
Phone: (212) 772-4070
NEW YORK, January 12, 2004 - Hunter College today announced that it has commissioned a new work from renowned jazz composer Maria Schneider which will be performed during her artistic collaboration with Hunter College during the spring of 2004. Maria Schneider will direct her 17-piece orchestra, The Maria Schneider Orchestra, at the world premiere of her commissioned piece at The Kaye Playhouse on February 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Schneider will give three additional concerts at The Kaye Playhouse on these dates:
Thursday, March 18, 2004 at 8:00 p.m.
Thursday, April 29, 2004 at 8:00 p.m.
Thursday, June 17, 2004 at 8:00 p.m. (presented in association with JVC Jazz Festival - NY)
Described by Time magazine as the "most important woman in jazz," Schneider has emerged as one of the finest and most versatile composers, melding imagination, logic and passion in her works.
Her recordings include such celebrated albums as "Allegresse," "Evanescence," "Coming About," and "Days of Wine and Roses - Live at the Jazz Standard." Allegresse, Evanescence and Coming About all were nominated for Grammy Awards.
Schneider will make Hunter the hub of her compositional activity. She and several members of her orchestra will teach master classes, present guest lectures, conduct rehearsals open to Hunter College and Hunter High School music students, and lead question and answer sessions following the rehearsals. In addition, Hunter music students with improvisation experience will have the opportunity to participate in a workshop with members of The Maria Schneider Orchestra's rhythm section.
"We are very fortunate to have attracted Maria Schneider, the doyenne of jazz, to Hunter's arts program for the spring semester," said Jennifer J. Raab, Hunter College president. "Her presence at the College enhances Hunter's strong commitment to the arts and we are looking forward to many exciting collaborations with her."
Maria Schneider's music career began when she moved to New York to study composition with Bob Brookmeyer under a National Endowment for the Arts grant. She became an assistant to Gil Evans, working with him on various projects, most notably, the movie The Color of Money and music for the Gil Evans/Sting tour in 1987.
Schneider conducted the Gil Evans Orchestra at the 1993 Spoleto Music Festival and the 1996 JVC Jazz Festival (New York). In 1994, she was commissioned to compose and conduct concerts with Toots Thielemans and the Norrbotten Big Band (Sweden). That same year, she conducted the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band at Carnegie Hall in the commissioned premier of "El Viento." In 2000 she conducted both "Porgy and Bess" and "Sketches of Spain" featuring Jon Faddis at Carnegie Hall.
She has also conducted numerous orchestras worldwide, including the Stockholm Jazz Orchestra, the Brussels Jazz Orchestra (Belgium), the Danish Radio Big Band, the Metropole Orchestra (the Netherlands), Orchestre National de Jazz (Paris), and the Stuttgart Radio Orchestras (Germany).
This past year's highlights include the debut of a new work at Alice Tully Hall commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Maria Schneider Orchestra at the Ottawa International Jazz Festival, and two European tours with the Danish Radio Big Band. The first DRBB tour featured soloist David Sandborn, and the second tour featured Ivan Lins and Toots Thielemans playing Schneider's arrangements of Brazilian songs by Lins.
Schneider received three Jazz Journalist Awards for Best Composer, Best Arranger and for her orchestra, Best Big Band. She has won many of the DOWNBEAT and JAZZTIMES Critics and Readers Polls. Her third album, Allegresse was ranked in both TIME's and BILLBOARD's lists of "Top Ten Recordings of 2000."
About Hunter
With a highly diverse student population of more than 20,000, Hunter is the largest college in the City University of New York (CUNY) system and the first choice among all CUNY applicants. Founded in 1870, the College offers more than 170 undergraduate and graduate programs. Hunter is noted for its professional schools in education, health sciences, nursing and social work, as well as its excellence in the liberal arts. Heralded as the "Crown Jewel of CUNY" by The Princeton Review, Hunter College has a distinguished reputation for nurturing talented minority scientists and meeting the challenge of providing high-quality science education in the 21st century. The College also oversees the Hunter College Campus Schools serving gifted and talented students, preschool through grade 12. For more
information about Hunter College, please visit our Web site at http://www.hunter.cuny.edu.
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