be released November 21. And on Saturday, December 20, the Paul Winter Consort Winter Solstice Celebration will be at Saint James Place in Great Barrington, featuring vocalist Theresa Thomason, Eugene Friesen on cello, Bulgarian bassist Peter Slavov, Brazilian pianist Henrique Eisenmann, German percussionist Bertram Lehmann, and Paul on soprano sax. This is the third year that Paul has celebrated the winter solstice at Saint James Place, which seats about 250 people.“ It ' s so beautiful,” he says about the venue.“ And for an instrumental musician, a place with those kind of acoustics is a kind of heaven.” It was just shy of an hour’ s drive from my office in Great Barrington to Paul’ s home in the Litchfield woods— a massive 1917 horse barn that is his studio and is located along with his house on 120 acres. This has been his home for 50 years. On a cloudy early fall morning, I pull up to the barn and phone Paul to let him know that we are there. He steps out of the massive building and gives us both a big smile, a warm hug, and leads us into his world. The next few hours with Paul was like no other interview I’ ve had. I was an active participant from the minute I walked through those barn doors. He takes David and me upstairs, and we start at a corner of the barn that is lined with larger-than-life Woodstock Chimes, which are called“ big tubes” by their creator, Garry Kvistad. We stand and admire their magnificence, and then Paul hands me two soft mallets.“ Just swat them hard, as hard as you can, on the tops,” he tells me.“ It doesn’ t matter what order, but get them all going, and just lie down and listen.” Lie down? All right, whatever you say, Paul. As I swat them, he walks over to me with a blue mat, takes the mallets from my hands, and gestures me to stretch out on the floor. I close my eyes and listen. The bell sounds turned into vibrations— the sound waves infiltrate my body and invite me to relax. It’ s hard to put it into words, and maybe that’ s Paul’ s whole point— that our listening faculty has been grossly underutilized when, in fact, it may be needed now more than ever.“ Why do we like it? Why do we love feelings like that?” Paul asks afterwards.“ I ' m interested in all the possible answers, and in the question that is it possible that the aural faculty could be a saving grace for our wayward species. We ' ve used everything we can in the visual realm, in the intellectual now, we ' ve got AI coming and have gone way beyond the limits in that realm. The aural is completely forgotten in our culture.” Paul criticizes modern culture ' s over-reliance on the visual and intellectual realms, neglecting heard experiences that can provide deep, non-visual experiences remembered long after other forms of information are forgotten. He believes in the potential of music to bring people together and foster shared experiences. Incorporating nature into music is an expansion of the community of voices, he says. In other words, music has the potential to inspire positive change and promote environmental awareness. We continue our tour of his barn, which houses decades of work and collaborations that span this musician’ s artistic life. We stop at old posters, musical instruments of many genres, boxes upon boxes of research paper covering the expansive floor, and so much more. We end the tour where we began, in his recording room. I examine stacks upon stacks of CDs that fill a few of the shelves— solo recordings of his and those with his Paul Winter Consort.( He has released 54 albums.) We settle into our talk with a concert grand
piano within arm’ s length away. Along one wall are boxes filled with files labeled“ Tanzania,”“ Kenya,”“ Uganda,”“ Malawi,”“ Zimbabwe,”“ Turkey,”“ Lebanon,”“ Bulgaria,” and so on. On a table are piles of folders labeled“ Flyways.” All this material is part of Paul’ s album project that has been in the works for 20 years, celebrating the Great Rift Valley bird migration from Africa through the Middle East to Eurasia— one of the most important bird migration corridors on earth. The project uses music from the cultures over which the birds fly, combined with the sounds of the birds themselves, to create a collaborative and international musical composition performed by the Paul Winter Consort and various indigenous guest musicians from the 16 countries of the flyway.“ We hope to finish volume one in 2026, which is called African Odyssey,” says Paul. Subsequent volumes will include the countries of the Mideast and Eurasia. He hands me an early CD of Horn of Plenty that he signs“ In Celebration.” And it truly is. On it, he performs on his soprano sax with his Consort and special guests from Brazil, Russia, Ireland, Romania, and Armenia, along with the voices of dolphins, wood thrush, blue whales, and timber wolves. There is a piece called“ Song to Roger,” a nod to the late Roger Payne, who recorded the humpback whale in the game-changing 1970 album Song of the Humpback Whale. Paul has so many stories to tell behind each song and each project that he is working on. One such story goes back eight years ago. A wood thrush arrived at his Litchfield home one June morning and sang a song he had not heard before. Paul was fascinated by it and would listen every morning and evening. One morning, he went to the piano and realized that the bird was singing in the key of C. Incredible. Paul placed a DAT machine at the base of the tree and recorded every morning. Five years in a row, the bird came back every June and sang that same song in C major. When Paul finally got a good recording, he played along with it with his soprano saxophone.“ He sings four phrases,” explains Paul.“ Each one is three notes. The three notes of each phrase outline a triad, a chord, and the four chords, I realized, were the same first four chords of Bach’ s Well-Tempered Clavier. So, I created this piece with a Brazilian feel to reflect the joy of his singing.”
Paul Winter Sextet, Saugatuck, Michigan, 1961.( Paul Winter Collection)
Holiday 2025 2023 BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE // 35