Festivals of world music which celebrate the return of the sun after the longest night in December, and which greet the summer and the dawning of the longest day in June, Paul Winter's annual Solstice Shows are contemporary celebrations which have become a part of New York's entertainment calendar.

Photo © Jeff Day

In a giant city with many holiday events, the musical, theatrical and environmental spectacle of Paul Winter's Winter Solstice Celebrations have become perhaps the best-attended celebration of seasonal change in New York City.

Accompanied each year by an array of great musicians, by thousands of visitors, and by thousands more listeners to the show on National Public Radio, Paul Winter has been celebrating the Winter Solstice for twenty-five years.

Photo © Jeff Day

Paul Winter's Winter Solstice Concerts are a modern celebration of an ancient tradition. The winter solstice marks the beginning of the winter season, for after the longest night, the days begin to lengthen. For many cultures, the long hours of darkness at winter solstice marked a time of mingled foreboding and expectancy. Special rituals were created to ensure that the sun's light would return after the long winter. Many of these traditions survive in our modern seasonal customs, such as the lighting of Christmas trees and Hanukkah candles. Winter incorporates some of these symbols into his contemporary celebrations, and he adds new symbols. These include a giant earth ball which ascends spinning into the vaulted ceiling of the Cathedral; an enormous sun gong, which rises like the sun, played by a musician in a bosun's chair; and a tree of sounds, representing the world tree and tree of life.

  | Winter Solstice 2005 - Performances and Tickets  | 

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PAUL WINTER'S SUMMER SOLSTICE CELEBRATION

Paul Winter's annual celebration of the first day of summer and of the longest day of the year is purposeful in its simplicity, emphasizing acoustic music and the meditative beauty of the waxing and waning sunlight through the great Cathedral's stained glass windows.

With concerts at sunset and at dawn, for many the highlight of the celebrations is the experience of being inside the world's largest Gothic cathedral at 4.30 in the morning and experiencing sunrise as it slowly illuminates the stained glass and fills the cavernous space with light.