Edito de CrestoneCRESTONE Paul Winter Consort Crestone sits at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in southern Colorado at an altitude of 8,000 feet. It's a tiny town in the northeast corner of the San Luis Valley, the largest alpine valley in the world, larger than my entire home-state of Connecticut. The Valley has been a hunting ground and corridor for people for 12,000 years. Many Indian tribes have regarded this land as sacred, and in recent times, contemporary seekers have been drawn here. My first visit to Crestone was in September, 1979. After returning many times over the years, in 2004, gazing once again at the panorama of the fifty-mile view across the Valley, and reflecting on my twenty-five years relationship with Crestone, I felt a calling to make music about this remarkable realm. As in the recording of my albums about the Grand Canyon and the Northern Rockies, my first quest was to find a resonant acoustic space in the mountains where the land would respond to us through its echoes and reverberations. I was fortunate to find an extraordinary guide, a Crestone resident named Peter May, who knows the mountain intimately and also happens to play trumpet. It was not easy finding a spot, but finally at North Crestone Lake, at 11,800 feet, the sound was thrilling, and the setting spectacular. That was the place. Over the next year we made plans for the recording expedition, and in early September, 2006, our entourage of musicians, photographers, cooks, engineer, and crew convened in Crestone. With fifteen people, several horses and mules, camping gear, food, an array of instruments including a large taiko drum, and an inflatable raft, we began the long trek to North Crestone Lake. We set up a tent village, well back from the lake, with a full view of 12,931-foot Mt. Adams rising up from the opposite shore. During the following week we made music in many places on and around the lake, an at all times of day and night. The whole experience, as in my past wilderness recording expeditions, was profoundly nourishing: the sounds, the creatures, the camaraderies, the humor, the cold nights, the moon, the water, and the warm morning sun. The lake became our wisdom spot, our place of departure and return, as we imagined the adventures in the journey-story of this album, taking us through the morning, afternoon, and evening of a day in the world of Crestone. From here, we felt we could call out to the world: and that here, also we could learn to listen. What a privilege it has been ... to be here, to make music with these extraordinary musicians, and to collaborate with the wonderful folks of the Crestone community. Gratitude to all my relations, Paul Winter Lire la suite