Throughout history, people of the northern hemisphere have celebrated the Winter Solstice as a profound turning point in Earth’s journey around the Sun: the moment when light is renewed within a period of deep darkness, of natural quiet, of openness to the night sky. One way to celebrate the moment of the Solstice is with music. Gualala Arts and Local Eyes present A Winter's Evening of Music with Wind In The Wires, Sunday, December 22 at 4:00pm. Tickets are $15 advance ($20 on the day of the concert) and are available at Gualala Arts, Dolphin Gallery, and at Brown Paper Tickets. 

     This concert presents an opportunity to deepen our experience of this transitional moment and celebrate the Sun’s immanent return. The music will be created by three outstanding musicians. Wind in the Wires is: Karl Young, shakuhachi; Janet Debar, didgeridoo and spoken word; Chris Doering, 7 string guitar and gizmos.

    The trio’s music is grounded in the didgeridoo, developed by Australian aboriginal people about 1500 years ago. Improvised elaborations on the drone draw on traditional forms from Japan, India and Europe as well as modern jazz. The concert will express seasonal themes with the sounds of wind blowing through bamboo and of nylon strings vibrating in imaginal spaces, as well as poetic verses that speak to the time of this. We hope to surprise everyone, including ourselves.

     Young added, “The shakuhachi embraces a different concept that encompasses a much broader range of timbral characteristics, which opens up greater expressive possibilities for the player who can assert some degree of control over them. Coming from a background in western music, I find improvisation with melodic and harmonic structures important, and the seven-string guitar as the third element of the ensemble perfectly fulfills that mixture, while adding intriguing sonic texture of its own. So there’s lots of sonic character available from these three instruments.” And Debar’s deeply moving poetry adds an extra-musical dimension that provides an even larger canvas for Wind in the Wires performances

(Note: although Winter officially begins on Saturday December 21 at 8:19 PM, Sunday will be just as short, with 9 hours, 27 minutes and 5 seconds of daylight. The sun will rise at 7:28am and set at 4:56pm, near the midpoint of this concert.