PAUL WINTER’S 42nd ANNUAL WINTER SOLSTICE CELEBRATION – Solstice Saga

Every December since 1980, seven time Grammy® winner Paul Winter and his colleagues have celebrated the Winter Solstice at New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, with a feast of music and dance from cultures around the world. Over these past 40 years, Paul Winter’s Solstice Celebration has become New York’s favorite holiday alternative to the Nutcracker and the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. This December, with their beloved Cathedral closed for renovations, the 42nd Annual Winter Solstice Celebration will be a comprehensive retrospective, available to a worldwide audience.

Entitled Solstice Saga, Paul Winter’s 42nd Annual Winter Solstice Celebration will highlight iconic performances from the first four decades of this legendary event. This one-of-a-kind video will premiere as a livestream via Stellar on December 17th at 7 p.m. EST, December 18th at 7 p.m. EST and 10 p.m. EST, and December 19th at 2 p.m. EST. Solstice Saga will be released as a video on-demand after the premiere, for ticket holders to view as many times as they wish, until the video is taken offline on June 15th, 2022.

Free Bonus Content:
Paul Winter would love for people to know the story of the evolution of this long-running Winter Solstice Celebration. So he wants to include two free “Prelude Offerings” with each Solstice Saga ticket purchase:

Winter Solstice, The Early Years: Volume 1
A 90-minute video of one complete concert from the first decade of this event: the 9th Annual Winter Solstice Celebration of 1988. This features an early chapter of the Paul Winter Consort, that includes Paul Winter on soprano sax; vocalist Kecia Lewis-Evans; Paul Halley playing piano and organ; cellist Eugene Friesen; flutist Rhonda Larson; percussionists Glen Velez and Café; and drummer Ted Moore.

Everybody Under the Sun: Voices of Solstice Volume 1, The Singers
This is a double-disc album that features all the special guest singers from all four decades of the Winter Solstice Celebration: 22 singers from cultures around the world. The 48-page booklet of the album tells a great deal of the story of the event, and the extraordinary artists who have been part of it.

The Early Years video and the free download of the Everybody Under the Sun album will be available at the time of ticket purchases for Solstice Saga. Paul Winter’s hope is that people will be able to experience these before the premiere of Solstice Saga the weekend of December 17th, 18th, and 19th.

About Paul Winter and the Solstice Celebration:
In keeping with the inclusivist embrace of the solstice, and the welcoming, intercultural, ecumenical tradition of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, these concerts have always featured guest performers from different cultures of the world. Solstice Saga will include performances by 12 special guests including Brazil’s Ivan Lins and Fabiana Cozza; Russia’s Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble; Gary Brooker, the lead singer of Procol Harum; Ireland’s Davy Spillane and Noirin Ni Riain; Noel Paul Stookey, of Peter, Paul and Mary; Abdoulaye Diabaté of Mali, and the drumming and dancing of Forces of Nature Dance Theatre.

The Paul Winter Consort players will include cellist Eugene Friesen; double-reed master Paul McCandless; keyboardists Paul Halley and Paul Sullivan; flutist Rhonda Larson; bassist Eliot Wadopian; drummers Jamey Haddad and Ted Moore; percussionists Glen Velez and Café, and gospel singer Theresa Thomason.

“This event has long been a resounding manifestation of the multiculturalism that is one of the great hallmarks of our country,” says Paul Winter. “America has long been a sanctuary that has welcomed and embraced peoples from everywhere, and we are committed to doing everything we can to ensure that it will continue to be. These celebrations have come to be the most memorable events of the year for us, summing up the musical adventures of our journeys, and bringing ‘home’ new friends we’ve met along the way.”

Winter continues, “Central to all the traditions of Solstice is the renewal of spirit, symbolized by the rebirth of the sun. Winter Solstice is a time for healing and for hope. It is a time to celebrate community and relatedness and a time to honor the diversity and the unity of this great cornucopia of life on Earth.”

Paul Winter’s recorded anthology, Everybody Under the Sun gives a glimpse of the spectrum of performers that are featured in Solstice Saga. The album can be heard here: Listen Now