|
contents | jazz | |||||||||||||
| Solstice Saga Livestream 42nd Annual Winter Solstice Celebration Dear, I'm very happy to announce our 2021 Winter Solstice Celebration. This December, our 42nd Annual Winter Solstice Celebration will be a comprehensive video retrospective available to a worldwide audience. Entitled Solstice Saga, the 42nd Annual Winter Solstice Celebration will be the definitive retrospective of this enduring event, highlighting iconic performances from its first four decades. 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. Tickets are on sale now. This summer we discovered in my barn a treasure trove of vintage videos of our solstice concerts that I had never viewed. We have interwoven extraordinary footage from these, with great performances that were featured in our 2020 retrospective last December. With this three-hour video epic, we have aspired to weave an organic tapestry of highlights from the journey of musical adventures that my colleagues and I have enjoyed during the 40-year saga of the Winter Solstice Celebration, within the spectacular architecture and titanic acoustics of the world's largest cathedral. 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 Nóirín Ní 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 become a resounding manifestation of the multiculturalism that is one of the great hallmarks of our country. 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. 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. Tickets are now available for purchase here! Free Bonus Content: I would love for people to know the story of the evolution of this long-running Winter Solstice Celebration. So we want 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; bassist Russ Landau; organist Dorothy Papadakos; 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 the first 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. (TOTAL TIME: 2 hours and 30 minutes) 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. My hope is that people will be able to experience these before the premiere of Solstice Saga the weekend of December 17th, 18th, and 19th. We invite you to join our Patreon community. Patreon, for us, has two main functions: to provide a platform to create and share music and other content, and to offer a forum to build a more interactive community. Patreon makes it possible for audiences to support the idea of fairer compensation for artists, and also affirms the value of the creative process itself. We invite you to join our community in any way that works for you. We are grateful for your support. Learn more about the musical ecosystem we are expanding through Patreon: patreon.com/paulwinter Become a Patron With gratitude, For living music, Paul write your comments about the article :: © 2021 Jazz News :: home page |