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Artist: Maria Schneider Orchestra
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Maria Schneider Orchestra:

The Thompson Fields

With The Thompson Fields, composer, arranger and bandleader Maria Schneider celebrates a long-awaited reunion with her vaunted jazz orchestra, a homecoming nearly a decade in the making.  Featuring eight new original works by the leader, The Thompson Fields makes brilliant use of Schneider's 18-piece jazz orchestra, a long-standing ensemble that spotlights such first rank players as Donny McCaslin, Rich Perry, Frank Kimbrough and Lage Lund.  The performances reveal an ever-deepening relationship between Schneider and her musicians, many of whom she has worked with over a quarter of a century.  The album follows a momentous year that found Schneider's recent album Winter Morning Walks garnering three wins in the classical category of the 2014 GRAMMY Awards, making her one of the rare musicians to win GRAMMYs in both the jazz and classical categories. The CD is powered by ArtistShare andavailable exclusively at MariaSchneider.com.

Maria Schneider Orchestra:

Data Lords

Maria Schneider to release new double album, Data Lords, with her acclaimed jazz orchestra
Available July 24, 2020, the recording is fan-funded through ArtistShare

Data Lords is a new double-album by Grammy Award-winning composer and bandleader Maria Schneider. Inspired by conflicting relationships between the digital and natural worlds, the recording features Schneider's acclaimed orchestra of 18 world-class musicians.

"No one can deny the great impact that the data-hungry digital world has had on our lives. As big data companies clamor for our attention, I know that I'm not alone in struggling to find space – to keep connected with my inner world, the natural world, and just the simpler things in life," says Schneider. "Just as I feel myself ping ponging between a digital world and the real world, the same dichotomy is showing up in my music. In order to truly represent my creative output from the last few years, it felt natural to make a two- album release reflecting these two polar extremes."

The music on the first CD has at its core, electric guitar (played by Ben Monder). The title track "Data Lords" was the first to be written and was commissioned by the Library of Congress Da Capo Fund, with support from the Reva and David Logan Foundation. Four more titles – "A World Lost," "Don't Be Evil," "CQ CQ, Is Anybody There?" and "Sputnik" – complete the first volume, all of which evoke different aspects of our world under the control of the data lords.

"A World Lost" longs for a simpler time when we were all more connected to the earth and each other. Its mournful sound comes through the dark tones of Ben Monder (guitar) and Rich Perry (tenor). "Don't Be Evil" was commissioned directly through ArtistShare by David & Ginger Komar and was premiered at the Newport Jazz Festival on August 6th, 2017. This piece musically mocks Google for their absurd inspirational motto, where from the beginning, they set their ethical standards at rock bottom. Powerful solos are delivered by Jay Anderson (bass), Ben Monder (guitar), Ryan Keberle (trombone), and Frank Kimbrough (piano).