www.montereycountyweekly.com february 23-march 1, 2023 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 19 the YouTube side. On Jan. 5, 2023, both parties had a partial win in a summary judgment in the class-action case, originally filed in 2020 in federal court in the Northern District of California. The court dismissed some claims, while other infringement claims stand, and the case will continue. Specifically, the suit takes issue with YouTube’s Content ID system, which allows the largest copyright holders an easier tool by which to protect their own content, but which is not available to Schneider or other members of her class. “The ready availability on YouTube of unauthorized copyrighted materials and the whack-a-mole approach required for creators to remove infringing material works disincentivize the creation of new works and reduce the value of all works,” the lawsuit claims. Musically, Schneider says the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1995 was her first really big commission. “Scenes from Childhood” that she composed for the occasion was later recorded on her second album, Coming About (1996). Schneider’s fourth album, Concert in the Garden (2004) earned her her first Grammy. It was also the first award-winning album produced by ArtistShare, a fan-funded platform created to disrupt the traditional arrangement between artists and record companies. Her seventh album, Winter Morning Walks (2014) won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. It is titled after a volume of poetry by Pulitzer-winning poet Ted Kooser, and equipped with haunting vocals by American soprano Dawn Upshaw. In 2020, Schneider released the album Data Lords, where she merges the world of music and advocacy, openly challenging digital media operators, with song titles such as “Don’t Be Evil,” named for the now-discarded corporate motto of Google. Schneider spoke with the Weekly about her music and her advocacy, from her apartment on the Upper West Side of New York City, before she is set to play on Wednesday, March 1 at the Sunset Center in Carmel. Weekly: There are landscapes in your music, also indicated by titles, such as your 2015 album, The Thompson Fields, that refers to your former neighbors’ farm in Windom, Minnesota. Why is that? Schneider: Most of us carry in our music something from our childhood. My childhood is maybe unusual in the jazz world because I was from a very rural area. Most kids that come up playing jazz usually are from cities that have programs that nurture that. I have other influences that are my primary influences. It’s something very rural, it has a lot of space. It’s not voluntary. What do you miss the most from your rural childhood? Simplicity. When I think about childhood I think about space. It has to do with [current] inundation of information and thousands of channels you can watch, and your phone always going at you. And when I was a kid, there was space. You had to think about things to do, create your own fun. It was a more creative time, and I miss the people. I went to Windom [in Minnesota] for my 40th reunion a few years ago. I was talking to one of the guys who still lives there and farms there. He said things have really changed. Kids are all in their insular world, they don’t do things together like we did. How did your parents think about music? My mom never pushed lessons, but we had instruments in the house. She played pretty good piano and bad violin. I also played bad violin, but we enjoyed playing anyway. But in a lot of ways, music came more from my dad. He was an engineer, very creative in building things. He noticed motivic development. He would notice when an idea connects or comes back. He thought of it more structurally. What was your music education in Minnesota like? I’m highly unusual because when I was 5 years old, I met this amazing woman, Evelyn Butler. She was a Dorothy Donegan-style pianist— classical and stride [jazz piano]. Extraordinary. Really, really great. So I had this unbelievable teacher in this small town. People like that don’t live in towns like that. We had a beautiful band program. It was a public school but it supported the arts. And this is something I’m really interested in. The least expensive investment this country could make is arts programs for students. “Poetry drives so much about the music, the rhythm.” “We all got to know each other over three decades. It’s been exactly 30 years since we have been doing these concerts,” Maria Schneider says of the 18-member Maria Schneider Orchestra. “They have a way of playing my music that makes it sound different every time; they bring something of theirs. They are making it greater than I knew it could be. And it belongs to us. And it’s so gratifying.” Gustav Eckart
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