COMPOSER/ACTIVIST MARIA SCHNEIDER LEADS RESIDENCY ACROSS MASON CAMPUSES

Maria Schneider (left) speaks with moderator Sandra Aistars (right)

Known for fearless musical exploration and beautifully blurring lines between genres, composer Maria Schneider has earned seven GRAMMY Awards across the realms of jazz, classical, and even her work with David Bowie. As a Mason Artist-in-Residence in April 2022—delayed by the pandemic from the originally scheduled spring 2020 residency—she led a powerful series of events across Fairfax and Arlington campuses with students, faculty, staff, and community members.

Through discussions, as well as open rehearsals and a culminating shared concert on April 16, 2022, in which Schneider conducted her own works with the Mason Jazz Ensemble students and professional Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra, the residency helped reinforce how Schneider became a groundbreaking visionary in the field. Events began with Beyond the Notes with Maria Schneider: A Conversation about Respecting Artist Rights, in Van Metre Hall on Mason’s Arlington Campus, and co-hosted by Mason’s Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy and Arts Management Program.

George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School Professor and Arts & Entertainment Advocacy Clinic Director Sandra Aistars moderated the conversation with Schneider, which was also streamed live to an audience including individuals joining in from

Ghana, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and India. Attendee and second-year law student Brianna Marie Christenson, a member of Professor Aistars’ Arts and Entertainment clinic who has worked as a business manager and plans to go into copyright law, said, "Maria Schneider shows creatives how to use a technology built to serve the audience and not the artist, like music streaming platforms, work for both artist and fan. Her use of online platforms to find new fans, and bring them to her own site for sale of her repertoire, is a brilliant way to handle having a niche audience while trying to recoup on albums. . . .Her leadership in use of crowdfunding is something artists replicate en masse now."

Schneider helped blaze a trail for the trend of crowdfunding as one of the first artists to sign with ArtistShare, today widely recognized as an early precursor to websites like KickStarter, IndieGoGo, and PledgeMusic. She notes that she documents her process on the platform through internet-exclusive streaming videos, sketches of her scores, and photos from rehearsals and concerts. "You can announce you’re doing a project, feature interviews with players, allow fans to become closer to the music. . . .I like that I don’t have any anonymous sales." Releasing her “Concert in the Garden” album on ArtistShare in 2004, she became the first artist to win a GRAMMY Award for an album not available in retail stores.

Schneider has also testified about digital rights before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, participated in round-tables for the United States Copyright Office, and given commentary on CNN.

While embracing technology to allow artists to be more independent, Schneider also emphasized the need to unplug, telling Mason Jazz Ensemble students in her open rehearsal/ discussion: “I don’t believe you can be a great artist unless you give yourself space. Leave your phone at home. Allow yourself to get bored. That’s when you start to imagine things. Dream it up. Make something. You will come through your music.”