Paul Winter’s Winter Solstice Celebration with Noel Paul Stookey

Seven-time Grammy®-winning saxophonist Paul Winter, with the Paul Winter Consort, will present their legendary Winter Solstice Celebration on Saturday, December 14 at 7:30pm at the Collins Center for the Arts.

For decades, the Paul Winter Consort presented their Winter Solstice Celebration in the world’s largest Cathedral, New York’s St. John the Divine, where it was beloved as New York’s holiday alternative to The Nutcracker and Radio City’s Christmas Spectacular. Since covid, the event has not taken place in New York, and the Consort is now bringing it to the finest acoustic halls in New England in a ten-venue tour.

The Consort includes Paul Winter, soprano sax; Eugene Friesen, cello; Brazilian pianist Henrique Eisenmann; Bulgarian bassist Peter Slavov; Brazilian drummer Rogerio Boccato; the beloved voice of Theresa Thomason; and special guest Noel Paul Stookey.

Singer/songwriter and activist Noel Paul Stookey, best-known as a member of the famed folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary, and producer of the Consort’s first two albums in 1968 and 1969, will join the Consort in a special Solstice performance.

The Winter Solstice Celebration is a contemporary take on ancient solstice rituals, when people felt a calling to come together on the longest night of the year, to welcome the return of the Sun and birth of the new year.

“Central to all the traditions of solstice is the renewal of spirit,” Paul notes, “symbolized by the rebirth of the sun. Winter solstice is a time for healing and hope; it is a time to celebrate community and relatedness; and a time to honor the diversity and the unity of the great cornucopia of life on Earth. Remembering the solstice, we resonate once again with the rhythm of the cosmos and allow our hearts to embrace the optimism of our ancient knowledge that the light will overcome the darkness.”

From the early days of his college jazz sextet, which toured 23 countries of Latin America for the State Department and performed the first-ever jazz concert at the White House for the Kennedys in 1962, to his later ensemble, the Paul Winter Consort, Paul Winter’s concert tours and recording expeditions have taken him to 52 countries and to wilderness areas on six continents, where he has traveled on rafts, dog sleds, mules, kayaks, tugboats and Land Rovers. He has recorded over 50 albums, of which seven have been honored with Grammy® Awards.

Tickets are $35 | $45 | $50 – fees included

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