Two decades ago, jazz master Dave Brubeck breezed into Emory University for a five-day celebration of his contribution to the music. It was a coup for the school, putting its relatively new jazz studies program and director Gary Motley, a pianist himself, on the map. It also marked the end of Emory’s longtime performance space: Brubeck’s concerts were some of the last major shows at Glenn Memorial Auditorium, which opened in 1931.
In February 2003, Motley welcomed jazz saxophonist Joe Lovano into the brand new, 825-seat Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts — a concert hall designed for optimum acoustics and built around a custom-made pipe organ — as part of the Schwartz Center Opening Festival.
Now the Schwartz Center of the Performing Arts is celebrating 20 years of programming with the 2022-2023 season of the Candler Concert Series, which is largely focused on jazz. Among the highlights is the Atlanta debut of the Maria Schneider Orchestra Nov. 17.
Motley and other Emory officials had been working to get Schneider’s orchestra to Atlanta for years but always ran into scheduling conflicts. The fact that everything finally lined up for this anniversary season led to the desire for something a little extra: the commission for a new work.
Credit: Paul Warchol
Credit: Paul Warchol
The result is the 10-minute piece “American Crow,” a work that will arrive as a complete surprise for Rachael Brightwell, managing director of the Schwartz Center. While she told the composer about the significance of the season, that was the only guidance Emory officials offered.
“We wanted her to drive the artistic process,” Brightwell said.
That’s an ideal situation for Schneider. For inspiration, the composer zeroed in on the common crow as a way to create nonpartisan commentary on the current state of political squabbles and arguments fueled by social media and broadcast television.
Schneider’s composition also has a personal genesis. During her youth in Southwest Minnesota, her parents rehabilitated a pair of crows and kept them as pets. Crows are mischievous, she said, and after roaming free for a while, authorities demanded the family cage the birds. Her father built an enclosure where the crows continued their squawking and mimicry. The work brings that incessant noise to a different arena.
“I thought it describes what our world is that we’re living in politically right now — everybody just screaming and crowing that they’re right, never listening to each other,” she said. “There’s just no willingness to listen or learn or understand.”
“American Crow” is apolitical, but it is call for a return to civil discourse.
The day before Halloween, Schneider was still working through the commission, preparing for the full band’s only rehearsal before the Atlanta performance. The ensemble played the first few minutes of the piece during a soundcheck before a concert at Harvard in early October, but practice time is in short supply. That’s why Schneider sees this premiere as merely a beginning; she might go back and edit musical passages, and the band will continue to develop its approach to what she admits is a very hard piece of music. The aim is to eventually record the work.
“Premieres are fun because they capture an energy that you just never, ever find again. Everybody in the band is on their toes; everybody is finding it for the first time,” she said. “They are seldom the best, definitive performance of something because it’s all new, and it takes a long time for a band to really find its way, to really know the music.”
In addition to “American Crow,” Schneider will lead her big band in another new bird piece, “The Great Potoo,” which she named for the owl-like creature she came across during a trip to Brazil. The setlist also includes “Don’t Be Evil” and “Stone Song” from her recent Pulitzer Prize-nominated album, “Data Lords.” Two pieces from her 2015 album, “The Thompson Fields,” and a tune from her first recording round out a show that will present a cross-section of her work as a composer and bandleader.
Other highlights from this season’s Candler Concert Series include the duo of bassist Esperanza Spalding and pianist Fred Hersch taking the Schwartz stage on Jan. 19 as part of the Schwartz Artist-in-Residence Program. And on Feb. 9, Motley marks 20 years of musician residencies at the school with the Emory Jazz Festival.
For next year’s jazz festival, instead of focusing on flying one jazz headliner into town, Motley will mark the special occasion with a slew of touring musicians performing and giving masterclasses during the event. They include vibraphonist Warren Wolf, saxophonist Greg Tardy, drummer Clarence Penn and bassist Edwin Livingston.
“It was a game changer,” said Gary Motley of the opening of the “world-class performance space,” which has helped him convince top jazz artists to perform at Emory. He noted that the center helped put his jazz studies program, which is supported by the Emory Jazz Alliance, on another level. The space has also “brought a lot of visibility to the university.”
Brightwell said the school’s Candler Concert Series, which stretches beyond jazz, celebrates a rich history of musical performance at the university. The season began in September with “A Standing Witness,” a song cycle with words by former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove. Pianist Helene Grimaud performed a solo concert featuring works by Debussy, Schumann and Chopin in October.
“This entire season is a culmination of two decades of performances by top-tier artists across all genres,” she said. “Presenting Maria Schneider in her Atlanta debut and welcoming back Esperanza Spalding, who has won five Grammys since last performing here in 2009, is perfect symbolism for our 20-year history and perfectly captures our goals of presenting the most established artists in their field, along with our history of presenting those on the rise.”
CONCERT PREVIEW
Maria Schneider Orchestra. 8 p.m. Nov. 17. $70, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, 1700 N. Decatur Road, Atlanta. 404-727-5050, schwartz.emory.edu.
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