MEDIA CONTACT: Judy Moore at 847-491-4819 or jkm229@northwestern.edu

May 11, 2004

Jazz Great Maria Schneider to Perform

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Internationally renowned jazz composer and conductor Maria Schneider will help celebrate the Northwestern University School of Music’s annual Jazz Fest with a spring concert.

Schneider’s appearance as guest conductor at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 22, at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 50 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston campus, will conclude a two-day festival that will include private clinics and workshops.

Schneider will be featured with four School of Music faculty members -- percussionist Joel Spencer, jazz pianist Michael Kocour and conductors Don Owens and Daniel Farris -- during a program that will include performances by Northwestern’s Jazz Ensemble, Jazz Band and Jazz Combos.

The concert will include some of her arrangements and original works.

Considered by many to be one of the most important women in jazz, Schneider formed the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra in 1993. The ensemble performed weekly at a jazz club in New York’s Greenwich Village for five consecutive years and appeared at jazz festivals and concert halls around the world. Schneider also has traveled extensively across North America and Europe as a guest composer and conductor and has received commissions from many of the world’s renowned jazz organizations and ensembles such as the Monterey Jazz Festival, Orchestra National de Jazz, the Stuttgart Jazz Orchestra and Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Her first three recordings were nominated for Grammy Awards, and she has received three Jazz Journalist awards and topped many “Downbeat” and “Jazz Times” magazine critics and readers’ polls.

Tickets for Jazz Fest with Maria Schneider are $10 for the general public, $7 for senior citizens and Northwestern faculty and staff, and $4 for students.

For tickets, call the Pick-Staiger Ticket Office at (847) 467-4000.