26 Facts About Paul Winter

Paul Winter was born on August 31,1939 and is an American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader.

Paul Winter is a pioneer of world music and earth music, which interweaves the voices of the wild with instrumental voices from classical, jazz and world music.

Paul Winter studied piano and clarinet, then fell in love with saxophone in the fourth grade.

Paul Winter started the Little German Band with his schoolmates when he was twelve, then a Dixieland band, and a nine-piece dance band known as The Silver Liners.

Paul Winter became enthralled by big bands and bebop bands of the 1950s.

In 1967 he started the Paul Winter Consort, influenced by Heitor Villa-Lobos and other Brazilian music, to give ensemble playing and soloing equal importance, analogous to a democracy where every voice would count.

Paul Winter borrowed the name from English Elizabethan theater of the 16th and 17th centuries, when bands combined woodwinds, strings, and percussion, the same families of instruments he wanted to combine in his contemporary consort.

The Paul Winter Consort recorded during the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1980, Paul Winter founded Living Music Records as a forum for his musical and ecological vision.

Paul Winter is a member of the Lindisfarne Association, founded by William Irwin Thompson, of scientists, artists, scholars, and contemplatives devoted to the study and realization of a planetary culture.

Cosmologist Father Thomas Berry influenced Paul Winter and affirmed his intent to awaken in people as sense of community.

Since 1980, Winter and the Paul Winter Consort have presented over 100 events at the Cathedral, including "Tao of Bach" with Al Huang, Carnival for the Rainforest, and with tightrope walker Philippe Petit.

Paul Winter was thrilled by the soulful beauty of these humpback whale voices, in much the same way as when he had first heard jazz saxophonists like Charlie Parker.

Paul Winter convened a three day whale conference in Sacramento, bringing together biologists such as John Lily; filmmakers; environmentalists; poets, including Gary Snyder; musicians such as Joni Mitchell and the Paul Winter Consort; and fans of the whales.

Paul Winter traveled to Japan several times with the "Save the Whales" campaign; played benefits for Greenpeace and other organizations; and led music-making and whale-watching workshops on Cape Cod and in Baja California.

In 1975, Paul Winter sailed aboard the Greenpeace V anti-whaling expedition for three days of playing saxophone to wild gray whales off the coast of Vancouver Island.

Paul Winter was accompanied in this effort by Melville Gregory and Will Jackson, musicians attempting to "communicate" with the whales using various instruments and a Serge synthesizer.

In 1978, Paul Winter released Common Ground, an album that combined his music and animal sounds.

Paul Winter spent three years observing, listening to, and occasionally playing his saxophone to sea mammals.

In 1990, Paul Winter convinced Roger Payne to come to Japan to various whaling cities, including Shoji and Ogasawara to tour a joint program showing how whale watching could be a viable business alternative to whale-killing.

In late 1968, Paul Winter saw wolves for the first time in the Redding, Connecticut, middle school, at a program given by John Harris.

In 1973, at a wildlife conference in St Louis, Paul Winter met wolf biologist Fred Harrington, who invited him to Minnesota, where Paul Winter heard wolves in the wild for the first time.

In 1968, Paul Winter began introducing improvisations into the Consort's concerts as a way for the group to play freely.

Paul Winter has conducted about 300 of these sessions at music schools, universities, and at centers such as Esalen, Kripalu, Rowe, and Omega.

Paul Winter has received a Global 500 Award from the United Nations, the Joseph Wood Krutch Medal from the United States Humane Society, the Peace Abbey's Courage of Conscience Award, the Spirit of the City Award presented at New York's Cathedral of St John the Divine, and an honorary Doctorate of Music from the University of Hartford.

Paul Winter received 6 Grammy Awards and 13 Grammy nominations between 1986 and 2010.