Paul Sullivan (born July 31, 1955) is an American Grammy Award winning pianist and composer whose music blends jazz and classical styles. He is a member of the Paul Winter Consort. [1]
Sullivan was born and grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended St. Paul's Choir School from its founding in 1963 until 1969. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy [2] in 1973 and Yale University in 1977. Sullivan began playing jazz in New Haven, and moved to New York City in 1978 where he performed at Bradley's and other major jazz clubs. He had a variety of freelance jobs including playing for and conducting Broadway shows.
In 1988 Sullivan moved to Brooklin, Maine to write music. He and his wife, Jillson Knowles, founded the record company River Music. [3]
Sullivan is co-creator of the performance piece A Terrible Beauty, which is based on The Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens. The piece was performed in Maine [4] and off-Broadway in New York City in 2010.
His jazz ballad "Whisper" was a finalist in the 2009 International Songwriting Competition. The song was recorded by Theresa Thomason, with whom he regularly performs, and appears on his album Break Away with his jazz ensemble PS Jazz. [5]
In the 1990s his record label published books on tape, which included White on White, a selection of E.B. White essays read by Joel White. [6]
Sullivan's first major choral work, River, premiered in 2010 by the Bagaduce Chorale of Blue Hill, Maine. He has composed for the Pilobolus Dance Theater. [7]
Sullivan is also known for his writing. In the spring of 1994 he attended the International Cello Festival in Manchester England with Eugene Friesen. Sullivan's story about this event called "The Cellist of Sarajevo" was published in Hope Magazine, Reader's Digest , The Book of Hope, Life Touched With Wonder: Windows of Hope and numerous blogs. [8]
Sullivan received a Grammy Award as a member of the Paul Winter Consort for the 2006 album Silver Solstice. [9] He received two NAIRD Indie Awards. In 1992 he won in the category of Seasonal Music for Christmas in Maine, and in 1997 he won in the category of Spoken Word for White on White. [10]
Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-American violinist. He has performed worldwide and throughout the United States, in venues that have included a state dinner for Elizabeth II at the White House in 2007, and at the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama. He has conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Westchester Philharmonic. In 2015, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Perlman has won 16 Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and four Emmy Awards.
Bitches Brew is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Miles Davis. It was recorded from August 19 to 21, 1969, at Columbia's Studio B in New York City and released on March 30, 1970 by Columbia Records. It marked his continuing experimentation with electric instruments that he had featured on his previous record, the critically acclaimed In a Silent Way (1969). With these instruments, such as the electric piano and guitar, Davis departed from traditional jazz rhythms in favor of loose, rock-influenced arrangements based on improvisation. The final tracks were edited and pieced together by producer Teo Macero.
Alvin and the Chipmunks, originally David Seville and the Chipmunks and billed for their first two decades as the Chipmunks, are an American animated virtual band and media franchise first created by Ross Bagdasarian for novelty records in 1958. The group consists of three singing animated anthropomorphic chipmunks named Alvin, Simon, and Theodore.
David Walter Foster is a Canadian musician, composer, arranger, record producer and music executive who chaired Verve Records from 2012 to 2016. He has won 16 Grammy Awards from 47 nominations. His music career spans more than five decades, beginning in the early 1970s as a keyboardist for the pop group Skylark, before focusing largely on composing and producing.
Michael Steven Bublé is a Canadian singer and songwriter. Born in Burnaby, British Columbia, he is often credited for helping to renew public interest and appreciation for traditional pop standards and the Great American Songbook.
Christopher Stephen Botti is an American trumpeter and composer.
Davy Spillane is an Irish musician, songwriter and a player of uilleann pipes and low whistle.
Maurice White was an American singer, musician, songwriter, bandleader, and record producer. He was best known as the founder, leader, main songwriter and chief producer of the band Earth, Wind & Fire, also serving as the band's co-lead singer with Philip Bailey.
Theresa Thomason is an American Gospel music singer.
John McCutcheon is an American folk music singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who has produced 41 albums since the 1970s. He is regarded as a master of the hammered dulcimer, and is also proficient on many other instruments including guitar, banjo, autoharp, mountain dulcimer, fiddle, and jaw harp. He has received six Grammy Award nominations.
Paul Brownlee McCandless Jr. is an American multi-instrumentalist and founding member of the American jazz group Oregon. He is one of the few jazz oboists. He also plays bass clarinet, English horn, flute and soprano saxophone.
Glen Velez is a four-time Grammy winning American percussionist, vocalist, and composer, specializing in frame drums from around the world. He is largely responsible for the increasing popularity of frame drums in the United States and around the world. Velez is married to Loire.
Philip Aaberg is an American pianist and composer. He gained international recognition through a series of successful piano recordings released on Windham Hill Records. Although classically trained, Aaberg incorporates classical, jazz, bluegrass, rock, and new music elements into his compositions and musical structures. Although best known for his solo piano work, he is most at home in the chamber jazz genre. His compositions are noted for their "rigorous keyboard technique, diverse influences, and colorful compositional style."
David Darling was an American cellist and composer. In 2010, he won the Grammy Award for Best New Age Album. He performed and recorded with Bobby McFerrin, Paul Winter Consort, Ralph Towner and Spyro Gyra and released many solo albums. Among these were 15 recordings for ECM.
Paul Winter is an American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. He 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. The music is often improvised and recorded in nature to reflect the qualities brought into play by the environment.
Eugene Friesen is an American cellist and composer.
Paul Halley is a keyboardist, vocalist and composer. He is perhaps best known as being a member of and composer for the Paul Winter Consort.
Solstice Live! is a live album released by Paul Winter in 1993. The album is a recording of a performance of Paul Winter's annual Winter Solstice Celebration, which takes place in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. The concert is a contemporary celebration of the longest night of the year, and the return of the sun. It features contemporary symbols for various parts of the celebration created by Winter. These symbols are both an artistic visual representation of something as well as a musical instrument played on during the performance. These symbols include the Sun Gong, a giant gong that is hit with yellow and red light, and risen 100 feet to the top of the cathedral ceiling, along with its player. Another is the Solstice Tree, a large sculpture of an evergreen tree, upon which is hung various cymbals, bells, chimes and gongs. The performance always features the Paul Winter Consort, and special guest musicians that Paul Winter has met or collaborated with, making it a celebration of the world's people and their music.
Silver Solstice is a live album by Paul Winter Consort and friends, including organist Dorothy Papadakos, released in 2005 through the record label Living Music. In 2006, the album earned the group a Grammy Award for Best New Age Album.
Dorothy Jean Papadakos is an American concert organist, composer, lyricist, playwright, and author. She is the former organist at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City (1990–2003), the first female organist to hold that post. She was also organist for the Paul Winter Consort at the Cathedral's Easter and Christmas services and performed with the ensemble on their Grammy Award-winning album Silver Solstice, released in 2005.