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I can live in that world and express myself. When I am most myself in somebody
else’s music, I find that their music is like nobody else’s.”
It was a year or two before Upshaw—by now involved with SPCO programming
as an artistic partner—gathered the courage to reveal her proposition.
“Maria was scared at first because I came from another world, but I
thought the possibilities were huge,” Upshaw said. “The melodies are so beautiful—and
I do like to sing a good melody. I’m glad I acted on the impulse.”
The choice of repertoire and musical direction was entirely Schneider’s.
“I’d sent Maria a few things that she didn’t go for, which was fine,” Upshaw
said. “I think the composer will be most inspired by something they find on
their own.”
Schneider wanted something that was “almost folk poetry, not complex
and difficult, but with a narrative, human element that my music has.” A
Brazilian friend suggested Drummond, and Schneider—who has incorporated
Brazilian elements in pieces like the contrapuntal “Choro Dançado”
from Concert In the Garden—“went to town.”
“I thought my Brazilian music influence was a good meeting point with
classical music,” Schneider said. “You can play it without drums, and it has
groove and tempo and time, which I put into the orchestral lines. The classical
world is used to pulling ahead and falling behind, but a big band plays
the beat right when the ictus of my hand is going down—not late, not early.
At certain points I wanted that relentless time, which was a challenge for the
players.”
For the follow-up, which debuted in June 2011 at the Ojai Classical Music
Festival (music-directed by Upshaw), Schneider decided to compose a looser,
sparer, more intimate piece for the Australian Chamber Orchestra, a
string ensemble whose musicians stand and function without a conductor,
with improvised sections from pianist Frank Kimbrough, reedist Scott
Robinson and bassist Jay Anderson, all members of her band for more than
two decades. Within the pared-down setting, she mirrors the interior, animistic
quality of Kooser’s works, which evoke, Schneider observed, “the open
prairie landscape that I come from, so pale in the winter—I don’t want to say
bleak—and so beautiful.”
Beginning with 25 poems that she placed on a board above the upright
piano in her living room-work space, Schneider culled nine pieces that most
Dawn Upshaw (left) and Maria Schneider
collaborated on Winter Morning Walks.
JIMMY & DENA KATZ
“spoke to me as music.” She referenced her orchestration of “Perfectly Still
This Solstice Morning,” which opens the proceedings. “I could immediately
imagine Frank playing these little crystalline, biting things,” she said.
“Writing this, I was out on a limb, and being able to write for people I know
so well made it easier. My music has gradually been getting closer to some
realm that’s right in the middle of classical and jazz, where the improvisations
are woven into the formal development of the music. So I decided to
pull the strings and Dawn a little bit into my world by including my guys.
Also, as opposed to big compositions, it was fun to write songs, short little
nuggets, a defined melody, as opposed to a melody that keeps developing
throughout a piece.”
In constructing the songs, Schneider said she forgot herself in the texts,
and drew on firsthand observations of her collaborator’s tonal personality
from their initial encounter. “The language gives a rhythmic and almost a
melodic contour,” she said. “That took me out of the realm of genre and into
the world of trying to evoke something from each poem. I also followed the
sound of Dawn’s voice, which has such a beautiful tone, with a beautiful low
range. I love the way she enunciates and projects the meaning of the words
44 DOWNBEAT AUGUST 2014