Residency Schedule | March 2-4, 2021
Hosted by NEC Jazz and Entrepreneurial Musicianship. Open to NEC students, alumni, and to the public. Practitioners of all musical styles are warmly welcome.
Tuesday, March 2, 2021 | Pitch Night
7:00pm-9:00pm pitch night competition (VIRTUAL)
Maria Schneider adjudicating with panel of NEC Faculty & Staff
Wednesday, March 3, 2021
1:00pm-3:00pm Working in the Music Business Q&A
workshop with maria schneider, ken schaphorst, and andrew worden
Maria discusses how producing and sharing her music has evolved with the music industry. What does it take to produce a record today? And grow an audience? How do you share your music widely while also protecting yourself? What’s important to spend money on when investing in a record?
Join us for this conversation and bring your questions!
Thursday, March 4, 2021
1:00-3:00pm The ecosystem of music panel discussion
with maria schneider, Mike EPSTEIN, and ANN Braithwaite
Moderated by Andrew Worden
What’s the difference between a manager and an agent? When do you invest in building out your team? What does it take to share your music in a meaningful way in 2021? Join us for this discussion with Maria and Co. and bring your questions!
Ann Braithwaite is the owner of Braithwaite & Katz Communications, a full-service public relations firm specializing in promoting the foremost jazz artists and events of our time. She and her team have helped to expand visibility for a myriad of exceptional musicians including Maria Schneider as well as organizations including the Montreal International Jazz Festival and NEC’s Jazz and CI departments.
Mike Epstein is the President of Epstein & Company, an international booking agency representing award-winning artists since 2013. The agency works with artists of all genres and has developed a unique process for helping clients achieve important career goals by taking an entrepreneurial approach to an ever-changing industry.
7:30pm-9:30pm Concert with Maria Schneider & Nec Jazz Orchestra
Grow Your Art: A Music and Business Residency was made possible thanks to a generous gift from an NEC supporter.
About Maria Schneider
Maria 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, to the American Dance Festival, and include collaboration with David Bowie. She is among a small few to receive GRAMMYS in multiple genres, having received the award in jazz and classical, as well as for her work with David Bowie.
With her first recording, Evanescence (1994), Schneider began developing her personal way of writing for her 18-member collective made up of many of the finest musicians in jazz today, tailoring her compositions to the uniquely creative voices of the group. They have performed at festivals and concert halls worldwide, and she herself has received numerous commissions and guest-conducting invites, working with over 90 groups in over 30 countries.
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.
Schneider’s many honors also include: 14 GRAMMY-nominations, 5 GRAMMY Awards, numerous Jazz Journalists Association awards, DOWNBEAT and JAZZTIMES Critics and Readers Polls awards, an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, the University of Minnesota, ASCAP’s esteemed Concert Music Award (2014), the nation's highest honor in jazz, “NEA Jazz Master” (2019) (NEA Jazz Master Speech found here), and election into the 2020 American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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, Pandora, 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.
Her latest double-album, Data Lords (2020), has melded her advocacy and art: Nate Chinen of NPR writes: “Now it's finally here, in the form of a magnificent double album, Data Lords. . . it parses into thematic halves, "The Digital World" and, as an antidote, "The Natural World." On the whole and in the details, it amounts to the most daring work of Schneider's career, which sets the bar imposingly high. This is music of extravagant mastery, and it comes imbued with a spirit of risk."
David Hajdu for THE NATION writes, “Beyond the dualism in its format, Data Lords is a work of holistic creativity. The music of outrage and critique in the first album has all the emotion and conceptual integrity that the music of melancholy and reverence does in the second. I can’t conceive of anyone else creating this music, unless Delius has been writing with Bowie on the other side.”
