The Age of COVID forced musicians to make a lot of changes. For the Paul Winter Consort, one concession to the pandemic was canceling their annual summer solstice performance at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. However, rather than simply skipping the event entirely and ending a 26-year tradition, Winter opted for a scaled-down version of the event: the concert would be held in the "cathedral-esque hayloft" in his barn in northwestern Connecticut; the musicians would be somewhat local to him, to reduce the need for travel; and there would be no audience accept for a pair of horses that lived in the stables below.

Besides Winter's soprano saxophone, the hour-long concert featured the talents of Boston-based cellist Eugene Friesen, Connecticut bassoonist Jeff Boratko, New York City pianist Henrique Eisenmann and Connecticut vocalist Theresa Thomason. They recorded the music in a single take, in the pre-dawn hours of June 19, 2021. The results of their performance were released the following year as the Concert in the Barn.

It's an extraordinary performance, one I wish I could have attended in person, but I am glad to have it captured here to share.

The concert begins with a brief sax solo rendition of "Sun Singer," Winter's anthem to the sun, before rolling into "Lamento de Aioca," an Eisenmann composition featuring sax and piano. The third track is the album's first song, "The Silence of a Candle," featuring Thomason, Eisenmann and Friesen.

Perhaps my favorite track on the album is "The Well-Tempered Wood Thrush," which makes use of Winter's well-known habit of working sounds from nature into the melodies of his music. In this case, the thrush in question repeated "a sequence of four melodic phrases, each having three notes," which Winter captured on tape and blended into J.S. Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier," with which the birdsong shared some remarkable similarities. (It's all explained in the liner notes.) Here, the thrush takes lead, followed by Winter's sax, Friesen's cello and Eisenmann on fortepiano.

After a handful of instrumental selections, Boratko and Thomason sing together on Boratko's original song "DNA." Friesen and Eisenmann duet on a "free-form interpretation" of Bach's "Air on the G-string." And Thomason gives us an expressive rendition of "How Can I Keep from Singing," learned from Pete Seeger but based on older roots. It's followed a few tracks later by her expressive "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," which was chosen to mark the solstice's coincidence that year with Juneteenth.

The album ends with the full ensemble on "Moro na Roca/Lapinha," a "burst of joy" featuring a pair of traditional Brazilian sambas, and "Icarus," which has been the consort's theme for a half-century.

I've been listening to an enjoying Paul Winter's music for more than 40 years, and he always manages to surprise me with new twists in his music. Concert in the Barn is no exception. It's a joyful celebration of the solstice, but also of music itself and the passion these musicians had to overcome the challenges of the pandemic and make this album happen. I am so glad it came together so seamlessly, and that we can enjoy this performance for years to come.

[ visit Paul Winter's website ]