What is your fondest Summer Solstice experience?
For 15 years the Paul Winter Consort has welcomed the first sunrise of summer in the great space of the world’s largest cathedral, New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
How have you been touched by this musical celebration? Please leave your recollection as a comment below.
For living music,
Paul Winter
It is absolutely the most unique musical experiance that anyone can attend. I love the way it starts in total darkness and the ambient sunlight comes through the stained glass windows to light the venue.I also love the fact that it also starts completely acousticlly.Ilove the intimacy with the musicians and the small crowd.Always a wonderfull experiance.
I attended my first Summer Solstice experience last year within the spacious Cathedral of St. John the Divine. As my daughter and I found our seats among the hushed listeners, we felt the special peacefulness of the moment and the restorative calm of the dark morning hour. We settled under the tall arches and the soft lights were completely dimmed. To hear the first tones soaring though the darkness and sensing that the improvised phrases relied purely on blind communication between the performers was a powerful moment. As dawn approached the music changed with it. My daughter touched my shoulder to turn and see the stained-glass images that began to softly gather the early morning light. It was a wonderful journey of sounds and spirits.
Having heard the broadcasts of the winter solstice celebrations for some years, I always have wished to attend. Alas, a bad time of year to get away. Having finally set aside some early summer time to visit the area, the notice of this event just leaped out at me from the events calendars. The calm but resolute effort to awaken, drive from Connecticut where we were staying with family, and seek out this edifice for the first time in our lives was an experience in itself. Once seated, the deep connections with history, ecclesiology, nature, and global music unfolded in the darkness, as light slowly streamed in, and music resounded now quietly, now thunderously, with melancholy, with quiet joy, with the simple words “Good morning” ending the experience. Nowhere else can such a unique experience unfold. Thank you for your art and life!
From the first single note emerging from the darkness, all my senses are engaged. I cannot see, but there are shapes. There is a faint scent of incense. By the time the streaks of the dawn sun begin to filter through the larger than life windows, I’m so filled with sound that it is impossible to speak. Then the gratitude for what I was a part of, fills me for another year.
After hearing the Consort on many occasions in Kansas over the years we made the trek to NYC to see the Summer Solstice. Arriving early to get a “good seat” we enjoyed the comradery of others who had ventured out in the night for a concert that begins at 4:30 a.m. As the lights dimmed to black and concert began, we quickly realized that every seat in the cathedral was a good seat. It was not about seeing. It was about pure sound, the dawn of a new day, and the experience of a good morning.
On the way to the Cathedral (June, 2009), 4 a.m., we met two young girls, visiting from a small town in Belgium, who were returning home that day, and were looking for the concert. Their first trip to NY, a sketchy hostel, less than perfect sight-seeing; it had been a less than perfect trip for them. We encountered a jive street guy on the way who tried to sell us newspapers that we knew were free on the street. Still, his patter was so good and so entertaining, my husband gave him some money, but the girls were confused and a little afraid. We all settled in for the concert, which was amazing and stirring and all the things my husband and I had hoped. As the light came in and the concert ended, the girls threw their arms around us and thanked us for befriending them. We knew, though, that it was the experience of the Solstice Concert that changed their minds about NY.
The moment when the first flash of dawn came through the rose window coincided with the crescendo of the organ that shakes the stones, and my whole body vibrated with it. What a sensation! I felt myself transported back to our earliest ancestors and their awe as the sun lined up to their sacred solstice markers. I felt everything within me lined up and joyous as well. It was timeless.
I,ve attended both the winter and summer soltice celebrations. I love both performances. But the summer solstice seems to resonate at a deeper level. I feel the quiet darkness and smaller audience allows you to be more in tune to the music. You feel it throughout your whole body. It really was quite spiritual. Thank you!!!
The Summer Solstice is for me the highlight of the year. I have been attending both performances (Summer and Winter Solstices) since 1996. It is still dark when the music starts and we are half asleep, but we begin to awaken physically and spiritually. As the sun’s rays break through the beautiful stained glass windows, my heart and spirit soar. I feel renewed and eager to begin one more year of my forever journey of discovery. I am so happy being part of both the Summer and Winter Solstices.
The Birth of a Day - with harmonizations of music and gradual light through color and image of stained glass windows -
one is present to the potential of new beginnings in a unique way as you sit within the dark, cavernous - and to some - Holy place of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine to wait and watch the sun arise, is how I might describe the Summer Solstice, presented by Paul Winter and musicians. It is an unforgettable experience to be felt, heard, seen and experienced
Everyone has spoken so eloquently of the sublime beauty of seeing a day’s arrival set to music. I attended only once and am, of course, pleased that I did. But I am a regular attendee in December. It fits me better, a lazy soul. I respond to the flash and thunder, and to the wolves’ Hallelujahs better than to the dark, particularly when getting out of bed. So carry on, you dawn-dwelling stalwarts. Some quiet aspect of me will be with you as you glorify the mystery.
I may have been the only refreshed passenger on the train filled with post party goers at 3:30 in the morning last summer solstice, my first. Having decided to go to bed at 9 pm the night before to be up at 3am, I was happy to have made such a decision for what followed was unlike anything I had seen before. The Cathedral was all but blackened in darkness until the first candle was lit from the within and the first rays of dawn began to slowly illuminate the great stained glass windows to the East. At the same time the music increased along with the great pipe organ to its highest crescendo which sounded louder than I’d ever heard during a midday service! Yet, when all was finished, we entered the quiet streets of New York at 6 am when not a store was open or much sound to be heard except the peculiar sound of the white albino peacock from atop the roof of a side chapel….
Thank you. Thank you. And thank you again!