(photo by E. Curry Jamison)

I am constantly amazed at the gifts I have received through music. One of the greatest gifts was my chance meeting with the great cellist Eugene Friesen in the summer of 1989. At the time Eugene was living in North Carolina and was conducting master classes on improvisation. I attended one of these seminars and we became good friends and before I knew it we were doing performances in the Western North Carolina region.

In 1991 Eugene invited me to be his bassist for the “Requiem for the Earth” which he was commissioned to compose and to performed at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven. I had no idea what I was getting into. The ensemble Eugene had assembled included some of the finest Jazz and improvisational musicians on the East Coast. How did a country bass player from North Carolina end up in such a band? And what a band it was, with a 50 voice choir, Eugene's brother baritone vocalist Milton Friesen and the soulful sounds of gospel vocalist Fushia Walker, Rob Faust the unbelievable mask artist from Faustwork Masked Theater and the incredible voice of New England Public Radio, Robert J. Lurtsema reading “Coyote Dances With a Star” a story from the Cheyenne people. I have to say this was a whirlwind experience for me. The music was exceptionally beautiful and challenging, but unbeknownst to me in the audience that night was Mr. Paul Winter. There was so much goings on that evening (with a recording session after the performance that lasted from 12:00am till 6:30am) that I don’t even remember meeting Mr. Winter.

After returning to NC and a few months later I had a call from Paul Winter in regards to traveling with the Consort to Spain for a two week 10 concert tour and a subsequent album from this tour. “Spanish Angel” was born and in 1993 the record was the first in Living Music’s history (six Grammy nominations prior to this record) to actually win the Grammy as best New Age album of that year. Fortunately this began a series of Grammy’s Living Music would enjoy receiving over the next few years.

I cannot begin to tell the reader how blown away I was to be a small part of all these events. I remember as a student at the Berklee College of Music noticing a flyer in the bass department one day while waiting for my lesson. The Paul Winter Consort was auditioning bassist for upcoming touring. I can still remember thinking that it would be really cool to play with these guys. Never would I have thought that 22 or so years later I would be performing “ Icarus”, a Consort tune we use to cut our teeth on in music school, with the Paul Winter Consort on an unbelievable stage in Barcelona, Spain while tears of joy were running down my face.

From than until now I have been so incredibly fortunate to have traveled the travels and performed the gigs with quite a few of the most unparalleled musicians of this century. Thanks to Paul and his record label Living Music, I am more than happy to accompany these artist any time, any place and I am thrilled to say many of them are quite a bit more than colleagues, they have become family. You can find links to many of their web sites here on my site I encourage you to check these folks out.

These days because of logistics our performance opportunities seem to be fewer and further between, but after the gig in parting it’s never good bye, it’s always “next time”.

Thanks for visiting my site.

Next Time,
Eliot Wadopian

January 5, 2003

(photo by Shadao Miyamoto)

Eugene Friesen and Paul Sullivan fooling around in between rehearsals with the Paul Winter Consort. Cathedral St. John the Divine, New York, NY 2003

Paul Winter making magic. Cathedral St. John 2003

Eliot, Glen Velez and Paul Winter with Dorothy Papodakos on the pipe organ above during sound check at Muza Kawasaki Symphony Hall, Tokyo 2005