Gender notwithstanding, nobody seems to be disputing the superior quality of Schneider's work. For four years now, Schneider has led her own 17-member big band. Her Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra performs every Monday night at the Greenwich Village jazz club Visiones. The so-called 'big band' has been fading since the 1970s. Schneider says the regular performances at Visiones have made the ensemble into an incredibly close-knit and supportive group.
Music can do that.
The weekly gigs also mean that everything Schneider writes gets played, with the exposure frequently leading to commissions and subsidies. In recent years, she's earned an invitation to conduct the Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra, a commission from the Monterey Jazz Festival, and the opportunity to lead orchestras at the JVC Jazz Festival. She's having even better luck abroad, taking her music widely overseas. In 1997 alone, Schneider received commissions from the Orchestre National de Jazz in Paris, Copenhagen's Danish Radio Orchestra, and the Metropole Orchestra in Holland. But, for all these rewards, composing is so excruciating for Schneider that, as she confided to a Down Beat reporter, she usually cries tears of frustration and self-doubt when she first hears one of her compositions performed.