September 12 – West Redding, CT
New Pond Farm – Paul Winter Consort

October 3 – New York City
Cathedral of St. John the Divine – Feast of St. Francis, Missa Gaia/Earth Mass
Paul Winter Consort

November 5 – Spokane, WA
American Orff Schulwerk Association – Paul Winter Consort

November 20 – Cleveland, OH
American Music Therapists Association – Paul Winter Consort

December 16-18 – New York City
31st Annual Winter Solstice Celebration – Cathedral of St. John the Divine
Paul Winter Consort & Special Guests

Photo by Bill Ellzey

Winner of a Grammy® Award as Best New Age Album of 2007, Living Music’s latest release, the Paul Winter Consort’s new album: CRESTONE: A Celebration of the World of Crestone , celebrates the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Great Sand Dunes, and San Luis Valley of Southern Colorado.

The primary recordings for this new release were done in the natural acoustics of North Crestone Lake, at an altitude of 11,800 feet in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The album introduces to the world the voice pow-wow drum and cedar flute of John-Carlos Perea, a young singer of Apache heritage, who sings in the Northern Plains Indian tradition. The album also features

the voices of Mountain Bluebird, Red-winged Blackbird, Whooping Crane, Meadowlark, Sandhill Cranes, Coyotes, and Buffalo.

The Consort includes Paul Winter, soprano sax; Paul McCandless, oboe and bass clarinet; Eugene Friesen, cello; Glen Velez, percussion; Don Grusin, keyboard; Koji Nakamura, Japanese taiko drum; Peter May, conch shells; and Richard Cooke, voice.

Purchase for a digital MP3 version of the Crestone album

From the liner notes:

“All my relations!” The Ute Medicine Man called out this prayer each time he poured water over the red-hot rocks in the fire pit at the center of the sweat-lodge. When we finally emerged from the lodge into the cool night air, I was stunned by the vast umbrella of bright stars above us. Later that evening, I played some calls toward the mountain on my horn, and a pack of coyotes began to howl.

Crestone album cover

This was my first visit to Crestone, a tiny town at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in southern Colorado. It lies in the northeast corner of the San Luis Valley, the largest alpine valley in the world, larger, in fact, than my entire home-state of Connecticut. For 12,000 years the Valley has been used by people as a hunting ground and migration corridor. Many Indian tribes have regarded this land as very sacred, and in recent times, contemporary seekers have been drawn here.

It was September, 1979, and I was there to take part in the annual conference of the Lindisfarne Fellowship, an association of creative individuals in the arts, sciences, and contemplative practices, devoted to the study and realization of a new planetary culture. Lindisfarne’s founder, poet and cultural philosopher William Irwin Thompson, had come to Crestone to establish a solar village in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Among the Lindisfarne Fellows at that first conference in Crestone were poet/farmer Wendell Berry; anthropologist Joan Halifax; astronaut Rusty Schweickart; physicist Amory Lovins; ecologists Nancy Jack Todd and John Todd; Whole Earth Catalogue founder Stewart Brand; poet GarySnyder; biologist Lynn Margulis; Arcosanti builder Paolo Soleri; neuro-scientist Francisco Varela; Esalen founder Michael Murphy; economist Hazel Henderson; environmental educator David Orr; ecologist Dana Jackson; botanist Wes Jackson; architect Sim Van der Ryn; and the Dean of New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Very Reverend James Parks Morton. Spending time with these extraordinary people, in the exhilarating atmosphere of Crestone, was deeply inspiring. I don’t recall much of what we discussed during those days together, but I do remember vividly our great volleyball games, a sunset picnic at the Great Sand Dunes, and the sweat-lodge.

Returning to Crestone often over the next fifteen years for these yearly Lindisfarne gatherings, I developed a deep sense of kinship both with this magnificent landscape and with the multi-cultural perspective of the people I met there.

In 2004 I was invited back to Crestone to play a concert for the Shumei International Institute, which had recently been established there. I had met the musicians of the Shumei Taiko Ensemble at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, and the Consort and I later played with them in an “Earth Celebration” in Pennsylvania for the Rodale Institute, with whom Shumei has had a long-term collaboration in natural agriculture. Looking out once again at the breathtaking panorama of this valley and these mountains, and reflecting on my twenty-five year relationship with Crestone, I felt a calling to make music about this remarkable realm.

As in the recording of my albums about the Grand Canyon and the Northern Rockies, my first quest was to find a resonant acoustic space in the mountains where the land would respond to our music with reverberations and echoes. I was fortunate to find in Crestone an extraordinary guide, Peter May, a natural architect who knows the mountains intimately, and who also happens to play trumpet, as well as being chief of one of Crestone’s fire departments (“Kundalini Fire Management”). Peter and I hiked to several places and played our horns to test the acoustics, but found no magical-sounding spaces. I soon realized that finding my “acoustic Shangri-la” here in the Sangres was going to be more difficult than it had been in canyon country, where there are vertical walls to reflect the sound. Peter volunteered to continue making reconnaissance trips, and over the next year he hiked to fifteen sites, recording his trumpet on a video camera and sending me the cassettes so I could hear the acoustics. One of these places, North Crestone Lake, at 11,800 feet, seemed to have promise. In the fall of 2005, I returned to Crestone and we hiked up there with Steve Van Zandt, our field recording engineer, who had been on several of our Grand Canyon expeditions. I played my saxat various points around the lake. The sound was thrilling, and the setting spectacular. This was the place.

Photo by Bill Ellzey

Over the next year, we made plans for the recording expedition, and in early September, 2006, our entourage of musicians, cooks, hostlers, photographers, and crew gathered in Crestone. With fifteen people, several horses and mules, camping gear, food, an inflatable raft, and an array of instruments, including a large Japanese taiko drum, we made the long pilgrimage up to North Crestone Lake. Weset up a tent village, well back from the lake, with a full viewof 13,931-foot Mt. Adams rising up beyond the opposite shore. During the following week we made music in many places on and around the lake, and at all times of day and night. The whole experience, as in my past wilderness recording adventures, was profoundly nourishing: the sounds, the creatures, the
camaraderie, the humor, the crisp September air, the water, the cold nights, the moon, and the warm morning sun.

This alpine cirque became our sanctuary, our wisdom spot, and our place of baptism into this immense landscape. Here we could learn again to listen, and from here we could call out to the world.

Other adventures followed the expedition, in various places around the San Luis Valley, including the Great Sand Dunes, the Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge, and the vast Medano-Zapata Ranch. I imagined sound-paintings of these scenes, with a mandala of voices reflecting the diversity of this life-community. A journey-story began to weave itself together, in which a succession of musical spirit-guides would carry us through the morning, afternoon, and evening of a day in the world of Crestone.

My sense is that this album asks for a special mode of listening. The journey works best for me when I’m lying flat on my back, with my eyes closed, and I participate more in my imagination, the way we listened in the old days of radio. I’ll be grateful to all who listen, and share these adventures, as I am to all who took part in the realization of this music.

Gratitude to all my relations,
Paul Winter

PLAYERS

KOJI NAKAMURA / taiko drum
Koji was born in the countryside of Hyogo prefecture in Northern Japan. He is a master drummer in the Japanese taiko tradition, and was formerly a member of the Japanese group Ondekoza and leader of the Shumei Taiko Ensemble, with whom he has performed around the world.

JOHN-CARLOS PEREA / voice, drum, cedar flute
John-Carlos’ heritage is Mescalero Apache and Irish American. He was born in Dulce, NewMexico, on the Jicarilla Apache Reservation not far from the San Luis Valley. He learned the Northern-style Indian singing tradition while studying with Barney Hoehner-Peji (Lakota) and singing with the Blue Horse Singers, a pow-wow drum group. He received degrees in music from San Francisco State University and the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology.
www.johncarlosperea.com

PAUL McCANDLESS / oboe, bass clarinet
Born in Pennsylvania, Paul studied music at the Manhattan School of Music, and from 1968 to 1972 was the original double-reed player in the Paul Winter Consort. He is a founding member of the acclaimed quartet, Oregon, with whom he has played for the past 35 years.
www.paulmccandless.com

EUGENE FRIESEN / cello
Eugene was born in Kansas, the son of Mennonite parents who emigrated from Siberia. A graduate of the Yale School of Music, he has been the cellist with the Paul Winter Consort since 1978. He is featured on over 25 Living Music recordings. In 2004 he recorded an album in the Miho Museum in Japan, entitled Sono Miho.
www.celloman.com

GLEN VELEZ / percussion
A native of Texas, Glen studied the traditions of Western percussion as well as those of many cultures around the world. He has played with the Paul Winter Consort since 1983, and has performed and recorded with a great diversity of world, symphonic and jazz musicians.
www.glenvelez.com

PETER MAY / conch shells
Peter May lives in Crestone, where he practices architecture, leads wilderness education programs, and is chief of one of the fire departments. Born in Detroit, Michigan, he has a degree in architecture from the University of Michigan.
www.wildinspiredmusic.com

DON GRUSIN / keyboard
Born and raised in Colorado, Don has long regarded the Sangre de Cristo Range as his favorite mountains. He has performed and recorded widely, producing nine series of albums under his own name.
www.dongrusin.com

RICHARD COOKE / voice
Richard comes from Kentucky, where he sang in church choirs during his boyhood. As road manager for the Consort in the mid-’80s, he began building unique types of xylophones, from which grew his enterprise “Freenotes,” producing a variety of innovative instruments that anyone can play easily.
www.freenotes.net

Since 1980, the Grammy® Award-winning Paul Winter Consort has celebrated the Winter Solstice, the seasonal rite of passage, with a musical feast from the cornucopia of cultures and creatures of the world, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. To commemorate their 25th Annual Winter Solstice Celebration, Living Music has released a new box-set entitled Silver Solstice, featuring the Consort with a host of special guests. The album includes the entire performance of the 25th celebration, plus 10 tracks from previous years’ solstice events. The box-set presents the 142 minutes of music on 2 stereo CDs, and also in Surround Sound on one bonus DVD-Audio disc.

For three decades, Paul Winter has put forth his musical vision of the community of the Earth, beginning with his landmark album COMMON GROUND in the 1970s. Silver Solstice embraces the musical traditions of many cultures, and includes voices from what Winter calls “the greater symphony of the Earth” – whale, wolf and uirapuru (the musical wren of the Amazon rainforest) – a trilogy of voices representing the sea, the land, and the air.

The special guests on Silver Solstice include gospel singer Theresa Thomason, Brazilian diva Luciana Souza, sean nos (old style) Celtic singer Noirin Ni Riain, Armenian singer and percussionist Arto Tuncboyaciyan, Brazilian guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves, Irish Uillean piper Davy Spillane, Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart, mbira master Chris Berry, and the nine-voice Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble from Russia.

Nominated for the 2000 Grammy® for World Music.

Adventures of a caravan of world musicians, recorded in the great space of the world’s largest Gothic cathedral- this is Living Music’s recent release, JOURNEY WITH THE SUN

Grammy-Winner Paul Winter presents his new Earth Band, featuring the great Irish piper, Davy Spillane (of ‘Riverdance’), legendary Armenian vocalist and percussionist Arto Tuncboyaciyan, cellist Eugene Friesen and keyboardist Paul Halley (long-time members of the Paul Winter Consort) along with special guest Mickey Hart (of the Grateful Dead) playing his new instrument, RAMU (Random Access Music Universe), and a caravan of 9 other world musicians, on a journey of new musical adventures born of Winter’s renowned annual Solstice Celebrations.

MUSICIANS

Paul Winter
Arto Tuncboyaciyan
Davy Spillane
Eugene Friesen
Paul Halley
Mickey Hart
Niamh Parsons
Vardan Grigoryan
Damian Draghici
Jerry O’Sullivan
Zan McLeod
Jordan Rudess
Jim Beard
Dorothy Papadakos
Eliot Wadopian

Grammy-winning CELTIC SOLSTICE was born from the creative interplay of Irish and American musicians in a contemporary celebration of the Summer Solstice and the longest day of the year within the magnificent space of the world’s largest gothic cathedral, New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

credits

– Soprano sax, Paul Winter
– Renowned Uilleann piper Davy Spillane, of the original ‘Riverdance’ cast
– Fiddler Eileen Ivers, an original and current ‘Riverdance’ soloist
– Vocalist Karan Casey, from the band ‘Solas’
– Whistle-player and flutist Joanie Madden, founder of the group ‘Cherish the Ladies’
– Piper Jerry O’Sullivan
– Paul Winter Consort members Paul Halley on pipe organ and piano, along with percussionist Jamey Haddad
– Zan McLeod on guitar
– Carol Thompson on Celtic harp and Welsh triple harp
– Austin McGrath on bodhran
– South African bassist Bakithi Kumalo, featured with Paul Simon for many years since playing on Simon’s GRACELAND album

Bossa Nova Gems Interpreted by Paul Winter and Oscar Castro-Neves

It is a testament to the universality of Bossa Nova that BRAZILIAN DAYS, the Living Music set from saxophonist Paul Winter and guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves, began life in the loft of Winter’s rural Connecticut barn. It was there in the bright New England spring that the two old friends and master musicians poured through a virtual treasure trove of Bossa Nova classics, and began to shape the contours of what would become their premiere duet album. The results are nothing less than a stunning rebirth of one of the most influential popular music styles of the last fifty years.

Considering that Winter and Castro-Neves have been friends for more than thirty years, and have collaborated on many prior projects, it’s a bit surprising that the two had never recorded a duet album. “It’s been a long-standing dream of ours to do this,” notes Winter. “Things really started to percolate when we were in Rio together for the Earth Summit in 1992. We played a series of gigs then, and it was so gratifying, we knew we simply had to make an album together.” Castro-Neves later joined Winter at his Connecticut home, where the two surveyed a definitive Bossa Nova collection compiled by famed Brazilian music publisher Almir Chediak, jamming for several days and working up arrangements of more than 150 incomparably beautiful songs.

“It was a lot of fun for me,” recalls Castro-Neves of the experience. “It was a way of looking back, of revisiting my past.” As one of the true pioneers of the Bossa Nova movement, Oscar speaks the truth. He was there in Rio de Janeiro in the late 50′s when geniuses like Antonio Carlos Jobim and Joao Gilberto first blended the impressionistic harmonies of Ravel and Debussy with syncopated rhythms of Brazilian music. Bossa Nova (Portuguese for “new touch”) was born then, and it changed the world of music forever.

Winter and Castro-Neves took their time paring down 150 songs to a manageable number. In March of 1997, Paul and Oscar recorded demos of 50 favorites, and from there the final dozen were chosen. In September, the pair were joined in the studio by bassist Nilson Matta and drummer Paulo Braga, two seasoned veterans of the Brazilian music scene both in the USA and in Brazil. “It was a natural match,” says Oscar. “Both musically and personally, it was an atmosphere of sharing.” Adds Paul, “We wanted to be totally simple and totally gentle in the original Bossa Nova tradition.”

Paul then packed up the master tapes and took one of his heralded recording expeditions to the Grand Canyon. He had previously recorded two albums, CANYON and CANYON LULLABY, in the pristine outdoor environment of the Canyon. “I had found a wonderful side canyon there in 1985 with amazing acoustics,” says Winter. “We called it Bach’s Canyon. Because I love how it feels to play there, I wanted to do my sax parts for BRAZILIAN DAYS there too. We back-packed into the Canyon a pair of DA-88 8-track machines, solar power gear, a mixing board, food and tents for a ten-day stay. It was amazing to be this far from civilization and to put on earphones and hear this exquisite Brazilian music. I closed my eyes and was in heaven.”

Most of the songs on BRAZILIAN DAYS would likely be unfamiliar to North American audiences, who may readily recall classics like “Girl From Ipanema” and the theme from “Orpheus,” but don’t know the bulk of Bossa Nova standards. “We made no concession to commercialism,” says Paul. “We didn’t do the hits. We wanted to make an album with something of the same ingenuous attitude that Jobim and Gilberto had when they recorded their first albums in the 50′s.”

Some of Bossa Nova’s greatest composers are represented on the new album; Jobim, Carlos Lyra, Noel Rosa, Vinicius de Moraes, Edu Lobo and Luiz Eca among them. Songs include “Aula de Matemática,” “Coisa Mais Linda,” “Feito de Oração,” “Feio Nao E Bonito,” “Minha Namorada,” “Tambén Quem Mandou,” “Ana Luiza,” “Feitiço da Vila,” “Canto Triste,” “Imagem,” “Por Causa de Você,” and “Se é Tarde me Perdoa.” All are performed with characteristic grace and serenity, with understated eroticism and playfulness.

—–

“Lyrical instrumental interpretations of bossa nova tunes by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Marino Pinto, Carlos Lyra and others feature ” Winter’s liquid soprano sax, Castro-Neves’ rich chord voicings, and solid but supple backing from bassist Nilson Matta and drummer Paulo Braga. [..] A long-overdue collaboration between two gifted and well-traveled musicians. ” (Billboard Magazine)

“Winter and Neves’s Latin sound goes down smooth, seductive and sophisticated [...]. Castro-Neves whips out those bossa chord changes as if he’s taking a Sunday stroll, while Winter’s lilting tone becomes even more pronounced. Like a warm Rio breeze, he wraps his soprano saxophone around melodies by Jobim, Carlos Lyra, Noel Rossa and other Brazilian composers.” John Diliberto in PULSE

“Antes de grabar con lobos, y cuando aún no imaginaba que iba a dejar volar el sonido de su saxo soprano por el Gran Cañón del Colorado, Winter visitó Río de Janeiro con un sexteto de jazz. Eran tiempos de bossa nova y el joven norteamericano se enamoró de esa música. Regresó y se instaló en Ipanema. Casi cuarenta años después confiesa que la delicadeza de la bossa cambió para siempre su manera de tocar. Y junto a su amigo, el guitarrista brasileño Castro-Neves, se llena de nostalgia en esta colección instrumental de bellísimas canciones de entonces.” Carlos Galilea en EL PAIS (Spain)

“Un disco con los aromas melódicos de Río en el que las recetas propias encuentran natural acomodo con otras de Vinicius de Morales y Antonio Carlos Jobim. [...] Winter despega inmejorablemente en la bossa…” Luis Martín en ABC (Spain).

credits

Paul Winter – soprano sax
Oscar Castro-Neves – guitar
Nilson Matta – bass
Paulo Braga – drums
Paul Halley – pipe organ on ‘Canto Triste, ‘Taméb Quem Mandou’
Cassio Duarte – percussion on ‘Aula de Matemática’, ‘Feitiço da Vila’, ‘Se é Tarde me Perdoa’

Produced by: Oscar Castro-Neves and Paul Winter

Nominated for a Grammy Award in January 1998, CANYON LULLABY is Paul Winter’s long-awaited first solo sax album, and the first Surround Sound album of music recorded in the wilderness.

Lyrical and haunting, CANYON LULLABY showcases Winter’s soulful soprano sax within the extraordinary acoustics of the Grand Canyon, among a symphony of wildlife voices.

During the creation of CANYON LULLABY between 1995 and 1997, Winter made three recording expeditions into the Grand Canyon in search of the sound-ambience that captured the feeling he wanted to express in his music. He and his team of engineers backpacked two 8-track digital machines and a solar power system into a remote area of the Canyon where they found the 7-second reverberation time Winter had been seeking. The result is a profound experience of the Canyon; Winter’s rich tones and yearning melodies resonate in the awesome space, and the recordings reflect the Canyon’s varying moods as the ever-changing background voices of birds and insects from dawn to deep night become part of the music.

Winter previously recorded an ensemble album in the Grand Canyon, his 1996 ground-breaking and best-selling CANYON, which was also nominated for a Grammy Award. He has won Grammys for his recent albums: SPANISH ANGEL, recorded live on a concert tour of Spain, PRAYER FOR THE WILD THINGS, recorded in wilderness areas of the Northern Rockies, and CELTIC SOLSTICE, a contemporary celebration of the Summer Solstice.

Continuing Winter’s legacy of state-of-the-art outdoor recordings, and further refining his musical-ecological vision, CANYON LULLABY is a tender lovesong to one of the most dramatic yet intimate landscapes on earth.

——

PAUL WINTER ON THE CREATION OF “CANYON LULLABY”

In August of 1996 [...] Chez and I were blessed with the birth of our first child, a daughter, whom we named Keetu.

Leaving for the Canyon when the baby was only three weeks old was very difficult for me. [...] My thoughts were constantly with Chez and Keetu, and it seemed now that every piece I played was a song to them.

I returned [to the Canyon] in 1997, this time with three engineers and a solar-powered multi-track recording system. It took us collectively a total of 26 hours to back-pack all the gear in from the River.

I played at all times of the day and night, in concert with whatever wildlife happened to be giving voice at the time. I began to imagine an album journey that travelled through twenty-four hours in the life of the Canyon, starting before dawn and ending in the deep night.

Some of the new melodies had a lyrical quality similar to traditional lullabies, while others seemed to have the kind of bitter-sweet longing that Brazilians call ‘saudade’.

In Ireland I had learnt from my friend, singer Nóirín Ní Riain, about the kinship, in Celtic tradition, between lullabies and lamentations ‘that touch more into the psyche than do love affairs or praising the land’. Lullabies originally often had magical vocables and contained magical intervals; they were for the dusky mysterious transition hours and they were meant to speak of a great yearning, of the most tender moments, and of deepest fears. I chose the title CANYON LULLABY because these are songs of my own yearnings, of my feelings for my first-born which have awakened in me a new tenderness for life, and of my deepened sense of awe for this planet as I stood in one of its most profound places. In that great and reverberant space, under the desert sun and the midnight stars, I called out to the Earth and it resounded in response.

—–

REVIEWS

“Since Paul Winter visited the Grand Canyon in 1963, this American musician has felt a special attraction for this marvel of nature. Now, solo (after many albums with his Paul Winter Consort), with his little child on the back, and armed only with his splendid saxo, Winter has returned to this land to create the music of an album that sprouts from the deepest regions of the soul. These are a total of 21 themes where the soloist instrument of this musician pays a homage to the natural beauty surrounding them. The compositions were recorded rigorously live. Microphones specially set allowed for capturing the sound of the saxo as it was remodelled by the spectacular geological formation of the Grand Canyon. All the themes have something of the magic, the spiritual, and also all of them have been composed by Paul Winter, except for Canyon Chaconne and Canyon Chaconne (reprise), where his good friend Paul Halley has participated.” — Amazing Sounds

“Paul Winter knew he wasn’t done with the Grand Canyon when he released the ensemble album Canyon in 1985. Drawn back again and again in his heart to the “great acoustic place” he’d discovered there, he returned to his musical sanctuary in Bach’s Canyon for a new series of recording sessions in the mid-1990s.

But this time, Winter came without his usual assortment of consort musicians. Instead, he decided to make his next album a private tribute to the landscape and to his new reverence for life born along with his daughter, Keetu, in 1996.

The result is Canyon Lullaby, a “day in the life” of the canyon recorded using only Winter’s soprano saxophone, the natural reverberations and background sounds of the canyon itself, and the recording equipment he and his crew could tote into the remote setting for the expedition.

Birds’ songs and calls, the rumble of a curious hummingbird, crickets chirping and the cries of bats fill in the gaps as Winter lets himself be inspired by his surroundings. The album is arranged in 21 tracks spanning a day from “Canyon Lullaby” at 4:30 a.m. and “First Light” at 5:15, through the morning and day (“Redbud Siesta” at 1:10 p.m., “Afternoon Sun” at 3:30) to nightfall (“Mars on the Rim” at 11 p.m., “Midnight Blue” at 12:10 a.m. and “Moon Shadows” at 1:20). There’s a nicely atmospheric thunderstorm rolling through the canyon for “Rain Blessing” (at 2:40). The day and the album both end with one final tune, “Canyon Chaconne (Reprise),” at 4 a.m.

People familiar with the full sounds of the Paul Winter Consort should not be disappointed by the sparser sound of Lullaby. It is a more introspective sound, to be sure, but in its way it’s also a more sweeping panorama — filling the senses with one man’s musical vision.” — Rambles
credits

Produced by Paul Winter, Sam West and Les Kahn. Cover painting by Curt Walters.