PAUL WINTER'S WORLD OF LIVING MUSIC: MUSIC OF THE EARTH
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Imagine yourself inside the world's largest Gothic cathedral in the predawn darkness as the canyon-esque space resounds with earth music played by Paul Winter's expansive world ensemble, and the great stained-glass windows are gradually illuminated by the first sunrise of summer.
For 14 years, Winter has gathered musicians from around the world in the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York to create inspired, spontaneous music at the spiritually charged moment of the summer solstice.
This year's Summer Solstice Celebration will vocalist Thersa Thomason as a special guest and the Paul Winter Consort in a dawn concert at 4.30AM on June 19, 20 in New York City's Cathedral of St. John the Divine. General admission tickets priced $35 are on sale now from:
OvationTix at OvationTix
Click here for a Free Summer Solstice music download.
The musicians will include:
The Summer Solstice Celebration will take place at 4:30 am on Saturday morning, June 19, 2010. There will be one performance only.
Paul Winter has long regarded the time of summer solstice as an auspicious opportunity for music-making. From the lineage of this event, over the past decade, has come a body of acclaimed live recordings, including Winter's 1999 Grammy-winning album Celtic Solstice, with Davy Spillane, Karan Casey, Joanie Madden, and Eileen Ivers; and his Grammy-nominated album Journey with the Sun, in 2001, featuring Mickey Hart, Arto Tuncboyaciyan, Niamh Parsons, and Spillane.
Winter explains his affinity for this milestone, along with his aspiration for the event: "Summer solstice is one of the great turning points of the year, when the sun is at its peak and the days abound with the promise of life's fullness. It is a serenely powerful time in which the beauty of the natural world can infuse our spirit, bring us alive to the present, and perhaps awaken a deeper sense of relatedness to the community of life, to the Earth, and to the cosmos."
"My dream, with this sunrise celebration, is to offer an experience of this resonance, through a deep-listening journey in the mystical ambience of these early morning hours within the awesome space and acoustics of this largest Gothic cathedral in the world. Our music begins in total darkness, and proceeds in a continuum, emanating from different places in the Cathedral. Gradually, as the great stained-glass windows slowly illuminate, the light joins the sound to carry us into the full dawning of the summer."
In the same way that these longest days of the year in June are the polar opposite to December's longest nights of the year, the simplicity of this all-acoustic Summer Solstice Sunrise Celebration is in total contrast to the highly theatrical Winter Solstice Celebrations that the Consort has presented at the Cathedral over the past 30 years. Winter welcomes this opportunity to present a more intimate and reflective musical journey, in which players and listeners alike can revel in the extraordinary acoustics of the 150-foot dome of the Cathedral. Winter calls it, "our most profound event of the year."
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is located at Amsterdam Ave. and West 112th St., Manhattan.
Tickets are $35 general admission for the sunrise concert and are on sale now from:
OvationTix at https://www.ovationtix.com.
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