Maria Schneider transcribes bird calls into orchestral jazz and has taken YouTube to court over its Content ID system. This episode follows the composer from Windom, Minnesota, through the University of Minnesota, Eastman, and the University of Miami, an NEA grant to study with Bob Brookmeyer, and hand-copying scores for Gil Evans during a Sting tour and the film The Color of Money.

We look at the first band with John Fedchock that dissolved along with their marriage, the 1992 founding of the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, weekly residencies at Visiones and Thanksgiving runs at the Jazz Standard, and the ArtistShare-funded Concert in the Garden, the first fan-funded album to win a Grammy. Then come Winter Morning Walks with Dawn Upshaw, arranging for David Bowie, her 2014 testimony before Congress on Section 512, the 2020 class action against YouTube, and the Pulitzer-finalist album Data Lords.

• Why fan funding in 2004 let her keep her masters and creative control
• How her orchestra recreates bird calls with mutes, glissandos, and alternate fingerings
• What the DMCA safe harbor provision is and why she calls the system broken
• The Content ID lawsuit’s timeline through its June 2023 dismissal
• NEA Jazz Master, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the 2026 Rolf Schock Prize