NEA Jazz Master Maria Schneider To Lead The NEC Jazz Orchestra In Concert

Internationally acclaimed, multiple Grammy Award-winning composer and conductor and NEA Jazz Master Maria Schneider conducts the NEC Jazz Orchestra in a program of her music on Thursday, April 17 at NEC's Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough St., Boston. The 7:30 p.m. concert is free, but tickets are required. For information visit necmusic.edu.

For this concert, Schneider conducts some of her most beloved pieces: “Coming About,” “Don't Be Evil,” “Journey Home,” “Sanzenin,” “Last Season,” and “Wyrgly.”  In addition, Schneider will lead a master class in the Eben Jordan Ensemble Room at 1 p.m. on April 17.

Schneider's music has been hailed by critics as “evocative, majestic, magical, heart-stoppingly gorgeous, imaginative, revelatory, riveting, daring, and beyond categorization.” Blurring the lines between genres, her varied commissioners stretch from Jazz at Lincoln Center to The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the American Dance Festival and include a collaboration with David Bowie. She is among a small few to receive Grammy Awards in multiple genres, having received the award for jazz and classical albums, as well as for her work with Bowie. She has received fourteen Grammy nominations and seven Grammy awards.

Schneider's work has been awarded honors by the Jazz Journalists Association, as well as DownBeat and JazzTimes critics and readers polls. She received an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, the University of Minnesota, ASCAP's esteemed Concert Music Award, the nation's highest honor in jazz, the 2019 NEA Jazz Master award (NEA Jazz Master Speech found here), election into the 2020 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and 2023 induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

A strong voice for music advocacy, Schneider has testified before the US Congressional Subcommittee on Intellectual Property on digital rights, has given commentary on CNN, participated in round-tables for the United States Copyright Office, has been quoted in numerous publications for her views on Spotify, YouTube, Google, digital rights, and music piracy, and has written various white papers and articles on the digital economy as related to music and beyond.

Unique funding of projects has become a hallmark for Schneider through the trend-setting company, ArtistShare. And, in 2004, Concert in the Garden became historic as the first recording to win a GRAMMY with Internet-only sales. Even more significantly, it blazed the "crowd-funding" trail as ArtistShare's first release, and was eventually inducted into the 2019 National Recording Registry.