Maria Schneider@Ojai Music Festival 06.12.11
By George W. Harris

The 4 day festival of adventurous music in this artist colony of a
California town brings all types of eclectic musical and cultural
styles. Composer and band leader Maria Schneider showed the wide
variations of colors on her artistic palate on Sunday, conducting her
orchestra in the morning and composing chamber music to accompany poems
in the evening concert.

The morning set had Ms. Schneider leading her Orchestra through a
concert that was highlighted by material from her Sky Blue recording
from a few years back. The heed section which included Steve Wilson,
Rich Perry, Donny McClaslin and Scott Robinson was velvety rich, while
Lage Lund’s guitar was lithe and sinewy. The sophisticated brass team
added clever hues, while the rhythm section of Frank Kimbrough/p, Jay
Anderson/b and Clarence Penn/dr was flexible and empathetic.

The evening show featured music that had Schneider commissioned to
provide as support for a series of poems by cancer survivor Jim
Harrison, titled “Winter Morning Walks.” The words were sung by soprano
Dawn Upshaw, with musical support by the Australian Chamber Orchestra
and Schneider Orchestra members Robinson, Anderson and Kimbrough. The
music consisted of wondrous luminescence on “Perfectly Still…” with the
strings and Robinson’s alto clarinet sounding like light breaking
through shady leaves, while “Walking by Flashlight” included moments of
richly weaved strings and plaintive piano, as if Kimbrough was wooing
each key. Upshaw’s earnest recitation of “My Wife and I Walk…” had her
pleading and yearning before God,while the chiming piano and pulsating
bass was powerfully emotive. The mix of melancholy and hope was matched
well between word and sound, showing a side of Ms. Schneider that needs
to be further explored.