by Daniel Hautzinger
Maria Schneider should write a musical. Her song cycle, Winter Morning Walks, features idiomatic vocal writing that wouldn’t be out of place in the Great American Songbook, the canny theatrical sense of Sondheim, and illustrative text settings that would be perfect for a Broadway stage.
Yet Schneider is one of today’s foremost jazz composers, with two Grammys to her credit; multiple albums as the leader of her big band, the Maria Schneider Orchestra; and an association with legendary pianist and composer Gil Evans. She also has ties to the classical world: her newest recording, Winter Morning Walks from 2013, fan-funded through ArtistShare, features the Australian and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras, and coalesced around soprano Dawn Upshaw, for whom both the title work and the Carlos Drummond de Andrade Stories were written.
Upshaw is an incredibly versatile singer, having performed everything from Handel to Crumb to Rodgers and Hammerstein. [Read more…]