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CD Review
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Star-Ledger, CD Review >>
Here comes the sun as winter nears
Saxophonist salutes nature in his annual celebration of the solstice
BY WILLA J. CONRAD
Star-Ledger Staff
CLASSICAL
Paul Winter, who has been artist in residence at the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York for a quarter century, does not consider himself religious.
"Music is spiritual in its essence. That's been my spirituality throughout
my life," Winter, 66, says. He concedes, when pressed, that he is a
"practicing saxophonist."
The long-reigning guru of the cathedral's annual winter solstice celebration is a late-life dad with a 9-year-old and a 9-month-old at home on his farm in western Connecticut. There's nothing like children to keep one mindful of the cycles of life, and reminding hard-core urbanites that nature still rules is Winter's mission.
"My music is really earth-centric," he says. "The community I've related to for maybe 3 1/2 decades -- since I first heard the songs of humpback whales -- is what I call the greater symphony of the earth, which includes all creatures."
Winter has found musical connections with wolves, whales and birds. He's created music with each and recorded outdoors with the acoustics of the Grand Canyon a participant in the sound his Paul Winter Consort produces.
From that great natural cathedral of rock, it's only a step to the soaring gothic reaches of St. John the Divine, a space Winter first experienced at Duke Ellington's 1974 funeral.
"I was stunned. I had an epiphany," Winter says. "It was so moving to me, and I thought one would have to create very special music to play there."
The Rt. Rev. James Park Morton, then dean of the cathedral, convinced Winter to give a concert in the church in 1979. Morton was attracted to Winter's melding of ecological stewardship and the spirituality of music. Winter was happy to perform in a concert in which a tai chi master practiced movement while Winter's 11 musicians (percussion, oboe and sax, piano, cello and bass) rendered Bach partitas and suites.
That performance, "The Dao of Bach," launched a tradition that is now a spectacle involving a giant sun and earth marched through the church and dancers (this year, the Dmitri Pokrovsky folk dance ensemble.) (The Paul Winter Consort has just issued a multi-disc retrospective, "Silver Solstice," on its Living Music label.)
"It's evolved over the years into a rather grand theatrical production, but we still do Bach," Winter says. "We've just added original music or music from various people and cultures."
Winter was trained in classical piano and jazz clarinet. When he left
Manhattan, he found himself living down the road from composer Charles Ives' Connecticut home, and used his newly formed Consort to celebrate Ives' centennial in 1974. Ravel, Villa-Lobos, bossa nova and the French organist/composer Jehan Alain are also among his many influences.
In short, Winter is among the last century's synthesists, and the winter
solstice celebration his most visible forum. Though gentler in feel, his
Consort helped set the tone for today's mad world of intense
cross-fertilization of musical cultures in classical, jazz and pop.
12/09/05 >> go there
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