Seven-time Grammy-winning saxophonist Paul Winter created his band, the Consort, out of roots in classical music and jazz. After his jazz sextet’s tour of twenty-three countries of Latin America, a close affinity with the musical community of Brazil, in particular, drew Paul towards a broader realm of music. In 1968 Paul heard for the first time the bluesy choruses of wild wolves and the melodic songs of the humpback whales, as haunting as any of the great jazz singers, opening him up to the great symphony of nature. These inspirations, along with the rich textures of Brazilian guitar, Afro-Brazilian percussion, and the symphonic music of Villa-Lobos, inspired his new ensemble, the Paul Winter Consort. Incorporating a very different instrumentation from the Sextet, nevertheless it continued in the same lineage: a spirit of celebration, in the democracy of ensemble, aspiring toward a balance between the improvised and the composed. Paul’s interest in the natural world, and a commitment to preserve it, continued to grow. Exploring ways to con-sort with voices of the wilderness later led the way to his unique genre of “Earth Music”. Paul has recorded more than 40 albums, 7 of which have won Grammy® Awards. Since 1980. Paul and the Consort have been artists-in-residence at the world’s largest cathedral, New York’s St. John the Divine, where they have presented over 100 special events, including annual Winter and Summer Solstice Celebrations, Carnival for the Rainforest, and their ecological mass, Missa Gaia/Earth Mass, which is performed annually each October as part of the Feast of St. Francis. The band has toured the world, performing over 3,000 concerts in 52 countries.

Executive Artistic Director/Choreographer Abdel R. Salaam and Executive Managing Director Olabamidele Husbands co-founded the Forces of Nature Dance Theatre Company in 1981. Forces of Nature has produced professional ballets, conducted dance classes and presented concerts and educational programs in New York City, the United States and throughout the world for over 32 years. Within its first two decades, the company received funding from various federal and state agencies including the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council for the Arts. In recent years, Forces of Nature has received two National Dance Project grants from the New England Foundation for the Arts, including funding for creation and touring in over 22 cities during their 2002-03 touring season. The Company’s NDP-funded project Eclipse: Visions of the Crescent and the Cross is toured nationally during the 2007-08 and 208-09 seasons. Force’s of Nature’s cultural matrix is centered in an African and an American intelligence that is global and environmental. Its aesthetic has been critically acclaimed as visceral, thought provoking and creatively brilliant. Forces of Nature utilizes a unique blend of performing arts, which includes contemporary modern dance, traditional West African dance, ballet, house and hip-hop forms as well as live and recorded music and the martial arts. The company has performed and toured widely throughout the U.S. and abroad. In addition to annual appearances at Aaron Davis Hall, the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and The Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Forces of Nature Dance Theatre Company has been presented by the Joyce Theater, the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s DanceAfrica Festival, the American Dance Festival, and the International Association of Blacks in Dance (IABD) conference, among many other venues. Forces of Nature has also been presented as part of the First International Black Dance Festival (UK); the International Dance Festival in Aruba; the 2nd International Grand Festival of Mexico, receiving the National Critics and Theater Award for Best Dance Company and Most Outstanding New Choreographer; and the 12th Annual Festival for Peace in Moscow, as engaged in historic cultural exchange with members of the Bolshoi Ballet. Forces of Nature led the historical procession for Nelson Mandela during his first appearance in the United States in 1990. In 2002, Forces of Nature was featured in the 3part PBS “Great Performances” special on the history of Black dance in the 20th Century entitled “Free to Dance”. Forces of Nature was also the featured dance company in a film project with the National Association of Black Museums on the influence of African American dance in Western culture entitled, “When the Spirit Moves”, culminating in an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. In addition to performing and touring widely throughout the U.S. and abroad, Forces of Nature has gained national and international recognition for its work with youth of all ages through workshops, master classes and training seminars. Through the development of ongoing programs offered to schools, community service organizations and cultural art institutions, the company currently in partnership with the Harlem Children Zone, has found that the arts coupled with informative, stimulating academic presentations and creative participation, serve as one of the best tools in educating our young and redirecting them toward a progressive alternative path.

Theresa reached the airwaves with Fresh Enuff, a popular club single and a winning performance at the Apollo Theater in New York City. She toured Europe for over 10 years, performing in over 150 European cities. She remains a featured artist with the Paul Winter Consort at the annual Solstice, Missa Gaia and Earth Mass celebrations at St. John the Divine. Theresa has also performed live at the United Nations for the Dalai Lama and others.

During a distinguished career spanning over four decades, Paul McCandless has brought the soaring lyricism in his playing and composing to the ensemble sound of two seminal iconic bands of jazz: the original Paul Winter Consort and the relentlessly innovative quartet, OREGON. Born in 1947 in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and a gifted multi-instrumentalist and composer, Paul specializes in the oboe, English horn, bass clarinet, soprano and sopranino saxophones and a collection of folk flutes reflecting his grounding in both classical and jazz disciplines. Trained at the Manhattan School of Music, he was a finalist in the 1971 English horn auditions for the New York Philharmonic. Today, he says he’s lucky not to have won those auditions, because a victory would have pulled him into the world of full-time classical performing, and he would have missed out on the rich life he’s had in jazz. As a collaborator and solo artist, he has performed on more than 200 albums and appeared with such renowned all-star musicians as Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius, Wynton Marsalis, Lyle Mays, Mark Isham, Steve Reich, Al Jarreau, Bruce Hornsby, Art Lande, Carla Bley, Tony Furtado, the String Cheese Incident, Nguyen Le, Proteus 7, Fred Simon, and many more. In 1996, Paul won a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. He also won Grammys in 2007 and 2011 with the Paul Winter Consort, for Best New Age Album. And Paul’s performance on the Oregon CD “1000 kilometers” was nominated for a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo in 2009. Paul’s compositions have been featured in a number of film scores. Most notably, he wrote music for the video Squanto and the First Thanksgiving, a Rabbit Ears Production, with Graham Greene as narrator. Three of Paul’s orchestral scores are heard on a CD called “Oregon in Moscow”, featuring OREGON and the Moscow Tchaikovsky Orchestra. “Round Robin,” the opening track, received two 2001 Grammy nominations for Best Instrumental Composition and Best Instrumental Arrangement. And amidst his years as a jazz artist, he has remained active in the classical world as well. As an orchestral soloist, he has performed with the Camerata Chamber Orchestra of Mexico City, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Philadelphia, Buffalo, Los Angeles, and Stuttgart Symphony Orchestras. Over the years, he has released a series of records of his own compositions with bands he led: “All the Mornings Bring” (1978, Elektra/Asylum Records), “Heresay” (1988, Windham Hill Records), “Navigator” (1981, Landslide Records), and “Premonition” (1992, Windham Hill Records). With Oregon, Paul has recorded a stunning 28 albums and CDs, in addition to 7 records and CDs with Paul Winter. In 1985, McCandless toured Europe with bassist Barre Phillips and German clarinetist Theo Jorgensmann. He has been a guest musician with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (appearing on the 2002 album Live at the Quick) and has toured with tabla artist Sandip Burman. He also was a guest of Leftover Salmon and the String Cheese Incident multiple times in the late 1990s. He has appeared on stage in duets with pianist Art Lande and recorded the CD entitled “Skylight” with him for ECM Records. Paul was a featured soloist alongside Pat Metheny and Gary Burton in “The Great Jubilee Concert”, a huge tribute event in Theaterhaus Stuttgart, in 2015, by the SWR Big Band celebrating the music and the career of the legendary German bassist Eberhard Weber. The event was encapsulated on the CD “Hommage a Eberhard Weber” (2015, ECM Records). Paul appears on two of Weber’s CDs as a leader.

Four-time Grammy Award-winner Eugene Friesen is active internationally as a concert and recording artist, composer, conductor and teacher. Eugene has worked and recorded with such diverse artists as Dave Brubeck, Martin Sexton, Toots Thielemans, Betty Buckley, Dar Williams, Will Ackerman, and Dream Theater. Eugene's passion for improvised music has been featured in concerts all over the world with the Paul Winter Consort and with Trio Globo (Friesen, Howard Levy and Glen Velez). He appeared on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" playing with Keillor and superstar soprano Renée Fleming and has performed as a soloist at the International Cello Festival in Manchester, England; Rencontres d'Ensembles de Violoncelles in Beauvais, France; the World Cello Congress in Baltimore, Maryland; and the Rio International Cello Encounter in Rio de Janeiro. A love for children and music education led Eugene to create his popular program for young audiences, CelloMan, and has fueled his work teaching new cello techniques and improvisation in the United States, Asia, Europe, Egypt, and South America.

Eliot Wadopian furnishes performance, recording and instruction on string bass as well as fretted and fretless bass guitars. A professional musician since 1977, no musical idiom is out of bounds. Eliot loves the exploration of music in it’s entirety whether improvised or notated. Enjoying the richness of multiple musical styles from Jazz, Rock, Blues, Country, Folk, Symphonic Classical literature as well as Opera. In addition ethnic styles from India, the Middle East, Latin America and Eastern Europe. In addition to his work with many well-known jazz and world music ensembles, he performs regularly in the bass sections of the Asheville Symphony, Greenville Symphony Orchestra and the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra. Eliot is one of those extraordinary musicians that can bring a lifetime of varied musical experiences to any performance venue, educational setting or recording opportunity. As a two time Grammy Award winner, his extensive career has taken him throughout the United States, Europe and Asia with several professional ensembles and has contributed his talents to well over 100 professionally released record albums.

Composer, arranger, performer and educator Jeffrey W. Holmes is Professor of Music and Director of Jazz & African-American Music Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. A music force of nature yet to be discovered by the broader world, he is a master of the jazz arts: as virtuoso keyboardist and trumpeter; as composer and arranger; as bandleader and educator. Holmes received his Bachelors and Masters degrees from the Eastman School of Music. He is a nationally published and commissioned composer/arranger and multiple recipient of National Endowment For The Arts Jazz Composition Grants. Holmes has written music for John Abercrombie, The Big Apple Circus, Ernie Watts, Max Roach, Yusef Lateef, Doc Severinsen, Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, as well as numerous works for military, college, high school/junior high school jazz, concert and marching ensembles. Featured on the Jazz at Kennedy Center Series with the Billy Taylor Trio, Holmes subs regularly with the Paul Winter Consort, is a member of the 11 piece classical ensemble Solid Brass, is lead trumpeter for the New England Jazz Ensemble, leader of the Jeff Holmes Big Band; and drummer with Amherst Jazz Orchestra. He is a former panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and columnist for JAZZPLAYER Magazine. Holmes has undertaken world tours, made several recordings, including his latest (Oct. 2012) Jeff Holmes Quartet release "Of One's Own," and appeared as a guest conductor/clinician/adjudicator. Jeffrey Holmes has performed with Dizzy Gillespie, Sammy Davis Jr., Louis Bellson, Vanguard Orchestra (Thad Jones/Mel Lewis), Sheila Jordan, Henry Mancini, Johnny Mathis, Mel Torme, David Goloschokin, John Abercrombie, Slide Hampton and numerous NYC Broadway shows. At UMass Amherst, he currently directs the award-winning Jazz Ensemble I and Studio Orchestra and is Artistic Director of the Jazz In July Improvisation Workshops.

Born in Cleveland Ohio, fresh off a tour performing with Paul Simon for the past 20 years, percussionist/drummer Jamey Haddad holds a unique position in the world of Jazz and Contemporary Music. Haddad's musical voice transcends styles and trends, and the universal quality of his playing has attracted many international collaborations. Jamey has been performing with Paul Winter over 25 years. Regarded as one of the foremost world music and jazz percussionists. Haddad is a professor at The Oberlin Conservatory and the Cleveland institute of Music and previously for 18 years at Boston's Berklee School of Music. Now that Paul Simon has decided to not tour in the large group format as he has done for decades, Jamey is devoting more of his time to the group his own group UNDER ONE SUN and BOKANTÉ, spearheaded by Snarky Puppy’s leader Michael League. In 2012 Haddad was voted the top world percussionist in "DRUM Magazine" and one of the top 4 world-percussionists by the most largely read percussion periodical "Modern Drummer” (July 2007). Mr. Haddad collaborates regularly with Paul Simon, Simon and Garfunkel, Sting, The Paul Winter Consort, Osvaldo Golijov, Yo Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, Esperanza Spalding, Danilo Perez, Joe Lovano, Billy Drewes, Elliot Goldenthal, Brazil's Assad Brothers, Simon Shaheen, Nancy Wilson, Dave Liebman. Jamey has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship, A Legends of Jazz Award, a Clevelands Arts Prize and numerous NEA grants over the years. His own group “Under One Sun” has a 2017 release and a featured in Downbeat Magazine See: jameyhaddad.com.

Tim Brumfield enjoys an extraordinary career as a performer, arranger, composer and producer. He currently serves as Director of Music Ministry, Organist and Choirmaster at St. Gregory's Episcopal Church, Boca Raton, Florida and previously served as Cathedral Organist at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. As Organist at the world’s largest gothic Cathedral, he performed with such renowned artists as pianist Dave Brubeck, drummer Max Roach, and legendary folk singer Judy Collins, among others. He has been featured on National Public Radio and toured with the Cathedral Choristers both in the USA and throughout England with performances at the famed Salisbury and St. Paul’s Cathedrals. He is considered one of the world's finest organ improvisers, tours regularly as a solo organist and pianist, and is often asked to lecture on the art of improvisation. He has been a member of the Grammy award winning Paul Winter Consort since 1998 and has toured Europe performing in Denmark, Italy and in France at the world famous Notre Dame Cathedral. Tim recently received the distinguished award of Honorary Fellow from the National College of Music, London.

Rigger Matt Guyton, also known as “The Gong Guy,” plays a unique role in the Winter Solstice. His part is to ride about 70 feet into the air, strapped in a bosun’s chair, beating on the world’s largest tam as it rises, spotlit like the symbolic sun after the dark night of solstice. As an instrument, 8 feet in diameter, the gong poses its own particular set of challenges, swinging with each strike of the mallet. The venue for the show, the world’s largest cathedral, New York’s St. John the Divine, has a seven-second reverberation, meaning Guyton has to adapt his percussive part to the time lapse with musicians on the stage almost half a football field length away. In addition to suspending the gong for the show, riggers hoist the massive lighting truss, set up the 25 foot tall music tree, and float an inflatable “earth ball” 125 feet up into the cosmic vastness of the massive vault above the audience.