PAUL WINTER’S 39TH ANNUAL WINTER SOLSTICE CELEBRATION
Paul Winter’s Winter Solstice celebrates the spirit of the holidays within the extraordinary acoustics of New York’s greatest Cathedral. This multi-media event features musicians, vocalists and the 25 dancers and drummers of the Forces of Nature Dance Theatre. A dazzling extravaganza of music and dance, the performances offer a contemporary take on ancient solstice rituals, when people gathered together on the longest night of the year to welcome the return of the sun and the birth of the new year. Broadcast on National Public Radio for the past 27 years, hosted by WNYC’s John Schaefer, the Celebrations have become New York’s favorite holiday alternative to the Nutcracker and Radio City’s Christmas Spectacular.
This is the first time in seven years that the event will be on the actual weekend of the winter solstice, which occurs at 5:23pm EST on the 21st.
Since they began, the Winter Solstice Celebrations have been a forum for performers from different music traditions around the globe. This year’s show highlights the natural world, featuring extraordinary and magical voices from what Paul Winter refers to as “the greater symphony of the Earth.”
The world’s largest cathedral, St. John the Divine is also one of its most extraordinary performance venues with titanic acoustics and a seven-second reverberation. The length of two football fields and tall enough to fit the Statue of Liberty under its dome, it was designed with sacred geometry to be a transformative space.
Over the years the Winter Solstice Celebrations have evolved into a theatrical extravaganza that inhabits the Cathedral’s entirety, transforming the Nave into a forest, the belly of a whale, or a night sky, where a giant earth globe spins from the vault like a tiny planet in the cosmic vastness. A gong rises 150 feet to the vault to celebrate the sun’s ascent, and the traditional evergreen takes the shape of a a 28-foot spiral “Tree of Sounds,” adorned with a multitude of bells, gongs, and chimes, to symbolize the diversity of the life on Earth.
“The opportunity to play in the Cathedral’s extraordinary space inspired me to look at the big picture, I wanted to celebrate the universals, the things we share in common with all peoples,” Paul Winter explains. “We were coming out of the 1970s when we saw the photos of the whole Earth the astronauts brought back from space. This cosmic dimension gave me the idea to create the Winter Solstice Celebrations, as a reminder that we live on a planet in special relationship to the Sun, and to bring people together in common cause as part of the larger community of life. Of course, this is a concert, a performance, but it’s also a way to make the transition from the old year to the new, to find a new evocation of the ancient rite of passage of our ancestors in the Northern Hemisphere. The longest night of the year marks the moment despair can turn to joy. It’s a message we can all hear, that most likely we all need.” – Paul Winter
THE CONSORT’S 50TH
This Solstice Celebration will launch the Consort’s 50th Anniversary year, presenting new and known (iconic) Consort pieces, and welcoming new pianist Jeff Holmes, taking over for Paul Sullivan, who, after three decades of travel with the Consort, is retiring from the road.
“This Winter Solstice we will pay homage to the half-century lineage of the Consort. My first band, the Paul Winter Sextet, had a great run in the early ‘60s, and the experiences from our travels led me to envision a new kind of group, one that would embrace all the traditions I had come to love. It was while living in Brazil, then, in the mid-‘60s, that I got much of the inspiration for the instrumentation of this new ensemble. The group evolved then after that with the encouragement of my friend Paul Stookey (of Peter, Paul and Mary), who produced our first two albums. I chose the name “Consort” for the band, full well realizing that people might think it was just “concert” spelled wrong. I liked both meanings of the word:
Cónsort, /ˈkänsôrt/, Noun: A small group of musicians making music together.
Consórt, /kənˈsôrt/, Verb: To associate, accord, harmonize; get together.
I wrote a manifesto for this new band: “My idea of consort is an organic ensemble in which the authentic voice of each player can be heard, and in which ensemble-playing and soloing are of equal importance. I imagine it as an analog to a pure democracy, in which there is equal commitment to the well-being of the whole and to the expression of each individual within it. Everyone’s vote (voice) counts.” – Paul Winter
LIVE STREAM
For the first time, we will be streaming the entire Friday night performance on December 21st, which is the solstice itself. We are happy that we can now share this event with those of our community around the country, and the world, who are not able to be in New York City with us for solstice. The performance will be streamed to Paul Winter’s Facebook page @paulwintermusic. For updates and more information on the stream, follow @paulwintermusic. We hope you will join us.
PERFORMERS
Paul Winter | Soprano Saxophone
Forces of Nature | Drums, Dance
Theresa Thomason | Voice
Paul McCandless | Woodwinds
Eugene Friesen | Cello
Eliot Wadopian | Bass
Jeff Holmes | Keyboard
Jamey Haddad | Percussion
Tim Brumfield | Organ
Matt Guyton | Sun Gong
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Paul Winter | Soprano Saxophone
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. -
Forces of Nature | Drums, Dance
Since its founding in 1981 by Artistic Director/Choreographer Abdel R. Salaam and Managing Director Olabamidele Husbands, Forces of Nature Dance Theatre Company has produced professional ballets, conducted dance classes and presented concerts and educational programs in New York City, the United States and throughout the world. The company mixes a unique blend of performing arts, including contemporary modern dance, traditional West African dance, ballet, house and hip-hop forms as well as live and recorded music and the martial arts. In 2016, Forces of Nature was featured in the three-part PBS “Great Performances” special on the history of Black dance in the 20th Century, entitled Free to Dance, and 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. Abdel Salaam is also artistic director of Brooklyn’s DanceAfrica festival, director of the Harlem Children’s Zone/Forces of Nature Youth Academy of Dance, and the artistic director of an annual Kwanzaa celebration at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. -
Theresa Thomason | Voice
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. -
Paul McCandless | Woodwinds
Paul McCandless was the original double-reed player in the Paul Winter Consort from 1968 to 1972. He is a founding member of the acclaimed quartet Oregon, with whom he has played for the past 40 years. He has also performed with Wynton Marsalis, Pat Metheny, Steve Reich, the String Cheese Incident, and the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow. His collaboration with Béla Fleck yielded the 1996 Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental. -
Eugene Friesen | Cello
Eugene Friesen has been the cellist with the Paul Winter Consort since 1979 and been part of over 30 Living Music albums. His solo albums are New Friend and Arms Around You. He has also worked and recorded with such diverse artists as Dave Brubeck, Toots Thielemans, Betty Buckley, Will Ackerman, Joe Lovano and Dream Theater. He is a member of Trio Globo with Glen Velez and Howard Levy, and is on the faculty of the Berklee College of Music. -
Eliot Wadopian | Bass
Eliot has played on over 100 albums, in several musical styles, and has performed extensively in the United States, Europe and Asia. 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. -
Jeff Holmes | Keyboard
Jeff is 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. Graduate of Eastman School of Music, he is currently professor of Music and Director of Jazz and African-American Music Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Featured on the Jazz at Kennedy Center Series with the Billy Taylor Trio, 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, John Abercrombie, and Slide Hampton. -
Jamey Haddad | Percussion
Regarded as one of the foremost world music and jazz percussionists, Jamey has played with the Consort for nineteen years, and for the last thirteen years has been a member of Paul Simon’s band. He also collaborates with Yo Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, Joe Lovano, Osvaldo Golijov, Simon Shahhen, Nancy Wilson, and Dave Liebman, among others. Jamey is an associate professor at Boston’s Berklee School of Music, New England Conservatory, Overland Conservatory, and the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has been voted one of the top 4 world percussionists in the world by “Modern Drummer” (July 2007). -
Tim Brumfield | Organ
Tim 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 performed throughout the US and Europe, including famed cathedrals such as France’s Notre Dame Cathedral and England’s Salisbury and St. Paul’s Cathedrals. He recently received the distinguished award of Honorary Fellow from the National College of Music, London. And he currently serves as Director of Music Ministry, Organist and Choirmaster at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church, Boca Raton, Florida. -
Matt Guyton | Sun Gong
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.
SOLSTICE TRADITION
The two great celestial milestones of the year, the Summer and Winter Solstices, are perhaps humanity’s most ancient ritual observances. People paused at these times to reflect upon the journey of life, with its trials, blessings, hopes and promise.
The word ‘solstice’ comes from the Latin ‘sol’ (sun) and ‘stitium’ (to stand still). Summer Solstice occurs when the Sun reaches its northernmost point from the equator and seems to pause before reversing its course; at the Winter Solstice the Sun attains its southernmost point and, once again, seems to stand still before turning back.
The Sun, our great golden star, is the source of our life, and each of our lives is a multi-faceted journey with the Sun. On one level, we are cycling through each day and night, as the Earth rotates from dawn to dawn in the light of the Sun. On another, we are traveling through each year, being carried 584 million miles by the Earth as it swings around the Sun from one Summer Solstice to the next. Simultaneously, we are riding with the Sun as our entire Solar System travels within the Milky Way galaxy, which itself is one of the dozen galaxies in what astronomers call our Local Group. And this whole Local Group of galaxies, in turn, is revolving around the Virgo Cluster of 2000 galaxies, 53 million light-years distant from us.
Making music at Solstice is one way to celebrate our amazing journey. If, in our listening, we are carried by the music, then perhaps the experience of that moment can be a hologram of the entire journey. In reality, the journey is right now, wherever we are. And when we are listening, each moment is the beginning.
Thank you for being part of our ongoing Solstice journey.