Concert Details

Pennsylvania-born Winter settled on saxophone as his preferred instrument by the age of nine. While majoring in English composition at Northwestern University, he formed the Paul Winter Sextet. Upon winning the 1961Intercollegiate Jazz Festival, the group was immediately signed to Columbia Records. Soon after, they became the first student jazz group to be sent abroad by the U.S. State Department. The mingling of cultures and exchange of musical and social ideas Winter experienced on that tour had a profound effect on him personally and musically.

Infused with the rhythms and melodies of so many of the world's cultures, Winter formed The Paul Winter Consort in 1967 in order to explore a richer texture of sound and a broader realm of music. Winter explains, "I borrowed the name 'Consort' from the ensembles of Shakespeare's time, the house bands of the Elizabethan theatre, which adventurously blended woodwinds, strings, and percussion — the same families of instruments I wanted to combine in our 'contemporary' consort".

Winter formed Living Music Records to create a forum open to the exploration of this musical/ecological fusion. The label, which has won three Grammy® awards and received nine other nominations, typically records its releases in Winter's woodland surrounded barn-studio. Occasionally, however, the musicians venture into outdoor acoustic spaces, such as the Grand Canyon, for sessions imbued with the essence of the natural world. The Consort also frequently records below the vaults of New York City's Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the world's largest Gothic cathedral where they are artists-in-residence. St. John's is also home to the Consort's famed Winter and Summer Solstice celebrations and their Earth Mass performed each Feast of St. Francis. "People get a sense of community — a sense of the whole wide community of life, which is one of the best things we could do with our music", says Winter.

The story of Living Music is interwoven with that of the Paul Winter Consort, two entities which evolved during a forty year saga of adventure-through-music, beginning with Paul Winter's college jazz sextet in the early 1960s.

Touring with his Jazz Sextet, close contact with the musical community of Brazil and a growing interest in the natural world and voices of the earth awakened in Paul Winter the desire to move into a broader realm of music and explore a richer texture of sound. To this end, he formed the Paul Winter Consort.

"I borrowed the name 'consort' from the ensembles of Shakespeare's time, the housebands of the Elizabethan Theater, which adventurously blended woodwinds, strings and percussion, the same families of instruments I wanted to combine in our 'contemporary' consort." Formed by Winter in 1967, the Paul Winter Consort became one of the earliest exponents of world music, combining elements from various African, Asian, and South American cultures with jazz.

"World music has always been part of the Consort mix. In the mid-1960s, Winter made a conscious turn from the button-down be-bop and bossa nova jazz that he recorded on three albums for Columbia. Emerging out of jazz, 60s folk eclecticism and eastern influences via the Beatles and rock, the Consort was a group where you were as likely to hear darbuka and sitar as saxophone and guitar. [...] Winter continues these themes today" (John Diliberto)