Paul Winter Summer Solstice, June 20: "Grand Canyon Sunrise”

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AN ACOUSTIC ADVENTURE IN THE WORLD'S LARGEST CATHEDRAL
The Paul Winter Consort will premiere new music inspired by their several river-rafting recording expeditions through the Grand Canyon, and by the canyonesque space of the Cathedral. Navajo singer Radmilla Cody will be the featured guest artist. Led by seven-time Grammy-winning soprano saxophonist Paul Winter, the Consort includes cellist Eugene Friesen; Paul McCandless, oboe and English horn; John Clark, French horn; Raymond Nagem on the titanic Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ; and a coterie of percussionists.

NAVAJO

SINGER RADMILLA CODY
Our special guest and featured vocalist, Radmilla Cody, was born and raised on the Navajo reservation near the Grand Canyon. Her album, Shi Keyah: Songs for the People, was honored with a Grammy nomination, and she is the subject of an award-winning documentary Hearing Radmilla, which explores her journey as an activist and performer.
A former Miss Navajo Nation, she is the founder of the "Strong Spirit: Life is Beautiful not Abusive" campaign, which brings awareness to teen-dating violence. As a survivor of domestic violence, Radmilla uses her personal experiences to advocate nationally and internationally for the importance of understanding and identifying unhealthy relationships and recognizing healthy relationships by incorporating the message of self-respect, self worth, cultural pride and identity.

SUMMER SOLSTICE, JUNE 20: "GRAND CANYON SUNRISE"

Paul Winter, on the Grand Canyon:
I saw the Grand Canyon for the first time in the spring of 1963. I sat on the edge of the South Rim and played my soprano sax, and as the sound disappeared into the vastness, I imagined there must be spaces with wondrous echoes somewhere in the depths below me. But in those days I had no thought of recording music in the wilderness.
Ten years later I returned, as another concert tour took me through the Southwest. This time I hiked part-way down the Bright Angel Trail, and, with my sax, found some of those echoes. Watching the mule trains go by, I pictured our Consort musicians riding down with cello and drums and guitars strapped to the backs of the mules, and playing music in great reverberant spaces. The seed of this vision grew over the next seven years, and in 1980 I returned, bringing the Consort, our instruments, and friends. We went into the Canyon not on mules, but on rafts, for I had learned by then that a more complete way to experience the Grand Canyon is to travel through it on the Colorado River.
When we began that first rafting and recording expedition, I thought naively that we would come out of the trip with an album. Two weeks and 279 river-miles later, humbled by the Grand Canyon, I felt we had barely touched the challenge of translating the spirit of the Canyon into sound.
It took us three more expeditions over the next five years to evoke the final tapestry of music I wanted for our album Canyon.
Summer Solstice Details

20th Annual Summer Solstice Celebration
When: Saturday, June 20, 4:30am
Where: Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY

THE CANYON AND THE CATHEDRAL

Around the same time the Consort and I became artists-in-residence at the Cathedral, in the early 1980s, we were also making our first recording journey through the Canyon. All of a sudden we had, as our fields of play, two of the greatest acoustic spaces on Earth.
We immersed ourselves in both of them, exploring ways we might create music appropriate to each. On our fourth Grand Canyon expedition, in 1985, we found a little-known side canyon that has the same seven-second reverberation time as the Cathedral. (After that, we began referring to the Cathedral as "Grand Canyon East.") This side canyon, which ends in a cul-de-sac, we came to call "Bach's Canyon." So, in our Canyon album, we wanted to have the best of both realms: music recorded in the Canyon, and pieces created in the Cathedral, in which we could use the sounds of the great pipe organ to evoke the vast panorama of the Canyon.
We will be re-mastering the Canyon album this summer and re-issuing it along with a DVD of the PBS special on the making of the Canyon album, entitled Canyon Consort.

THREATS

TO THE GRAND CANYON
Our beloved Grand Canyon, and the majestic Colorado River, which runs through it for 277 miles, is under siege on many fronts. Threats include a proposed multi-million dollar super-mall and tramway in the Canyon; proposed expansion of groundwater pumping; and radioactive pollution from uranium mining that could create a hazardous situation for the Navajo community that has been living on this land for generations. Our event intends to affirm and honor the rights of the traditional peoples of the 11 tribes who live in Grand Canyon country, and to awaken awareness of these serious threats to this great national treasure that belongs to us all. "KEEP THE CANYON GRAND" is the rallying cry of activists and traditional families who are responding to these challenges.
Read the New York Times article: "A Cathedral Under Siege."

ADVENTURES IN SOUND-PLAY: MAINE & MASSACHUSETTS
My ideal for an adventure of discovery is a shared-experience in expression, in the context of nature. I'm grateful to have two opportunities for these adventures this Spring.
Hog Island Audubon Camp: Bremen, Maine
"Adventures in SoundPlay & Birding"
June 7-10
This will be an integrated intensive of SoundPlay and bird-watching, with some of America's top birders, including famed ornithologist (and my friend) Pete Dunne, on magnificent Hog Island off the coast of Maine. No musical or birding experience is necessary. (Only 9 spaces are left as of now; the Island facilities can accommodate only 50 people.)

Rowe Camps & Conference Center: Rowe, Massachusetts
"Adventures in SoundPlay"
June 12-14
"Adventures in SoundPlay" will be a weekend workshop intensive, in one of my favorite "retreats" — the Rowe Center in western Massachusetts. Rowe has been a home for my SoundPlay adventures for more than 25 years. I always look forward to returning to the soulful environment of Rowe, and to the new musical experiences and friendships that emerge in these shared SoundPlay adventures.
Rowe is one of my favorites of the Earth-oriented centers, which have emerged around the country since the 1960s, when the Esalen Institute came forth and pointed the way. All of these centers are extraordinary destination places in nature, where people come for learning, fellowship, transformation, healing, seeking of many kinds, and/or just a nourishing time, like a mini-vacation. I call them "watering holes." I've been privileged to present workshops at many of these places over the years. But there's something "home" about Rowe. It's a quintessential New England place, with deep taproots in the heritages of social justice and the human potential movement.
Set in a gorgeous mountain landscape, the ambience at Rowe is profoundly welcoming. And the food is exquisite. We eat in community with members of the two other workshops taking place that weekend, under the cathedral-like vault of a spectacular log dining hall. It reminds me of the lodges at some of our national parks in the West. But our space for SoundPlay will be a soulful little stone chapel, by the lake, which has lovely acoustics and a feeling of true sanctuary. There are still a good number of spaces left in this event.

June 4, 2015 - Copyright Paul Winter
World of Living Music

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