INTERVIEW: Welcome summer with Paul Winter’s solstice celebration
Photo: Paul Winter’s Sumer Solstice Celebration will fill the voluminous space of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine June 16. Winter also performs a Winter Solstice Celebration in the same space. Photo courtesy of Rhonda Dorsett / Provided with permission by Waldmania.
Grammy Award winner Paul Winter likes to host a grand celebration. He throws them at least twice a year when the seasons change and the sun is at a particular point in the sky. This week, at 4:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 16, Winter and the Paul Winter Consort return to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine for their annual Summer Solstice Celebration.
The opening of the concert, which also features vocalist Theresa Thomason and the 16-voice Pletenista Balkan Choir, will take place in darkness, and by the second hour, the sun will begin to rise. The music, building toward a crescendo in the voluminous space, will welcome the solstice in a unique, artistic manner.
“I’d like to say they can expect a new kind of adventure,” Winter said of the anticipated audience reaction. “We don’t often gather this time of the extremely early morning and listen together, and especially in darkness, and that’s for me the essence of this event, that we begin in a place of deep listening and allow the sounds to carry us into the light as the slow dawn begins to crescendo after about the first hour.”
Winter said the morning performance, which is capped off by tea and coffee, doesn’t qualify solely as entertainment. For some audience members, the experience can be deeply moving, even spiritual. Yoga mat space will also be available for those who would like to participate with their full bodies.
“It’d be fun to get different takes on how they experience it,” Winter said. “I think it’s deeply moving for many people who come, and I would think of it as beyond entertainment and really beyond art. It’s a kind of a life experience.”
There’s no doubt that the early-morning start time can be a hindrance to some, and Winter makes no qualms about it: Getting up that early is a drag for the musicians as well. But there’s a collective identity that is achieved by having everyone make the same journey.
“Getting up at 2 o’clock and taking a shower and then getting to the cathedral on time,” Winter said with a sigh. “We’re usually there by 3:30, so the musicians can orient ourselves briefly before the doors open. And the things that happen, kind of having to do with our shared nature, when we’re all in a place like this, it makes me think of wilderness expeditions I’ve been on in the Grand Canyon where we’re all together on a raft going down the river. We’re all together at night. There’s a camaraderie that seems to emerge because we’re sharing a real physical experience together that’s unusual, and so it’s almost as if all we need to do is show up in this magnificent space of the cathedral. And we’re sharing that space, and we’re sharing the darkness. As people are coming in, there are just candles that are lit, and so it becomes fairly mystical from the time they come in the door on Amsterdam Avenue and walk the full block inside to the crossing of the cathedral where the event takes place.”
Winter, who will be joined by his four-person band, is particularly excited to share the stage with the Boston-based Pletenista Balkan Choir, who produce a “stunning sound” that derives from their heritage.
“It’s riveting to hear them, especially in the acoustics under the dome of the cathedral,” he said. “It’s a perfect place for this choir because they’re used to singing without amplification, and there’s a kind of synergistic sound that happens from the convergence of their voices that is kind of more of the sum. And this is the kind of context where you can really experience that, far more than when they’re on a stage and being amplified, and they’re at a bit of a distance from you. In this case, they’re right in the middle of the audience.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Paul Winter’s Summer Solstice Celebration takes place Saturday, June 16 at 4:30 a.m. at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Amsterdam Avenue in New York City. Tickets are $40-$50. Click here for more information and tickets.
