Last Saturday was one of those clear, sunny, impossibly blue-skied August days that sets Westport’s beaches and pastures off as the jewels of Buzzards Bay. When Executive Director Gay Gillespie kicked off the Westport River Watershed Alliance’s 30th anniversary gala by announcing, “Welcome to the most spectacular evening the Watershed has ever seen,” she was hardly exaggerating.
Photo: Paul Winter and wife Chez
The “perfect 10” weather, the gala’s setting adjacent to the Charlton Estate, a benefit concert by five-time Grammy award winning musician Paul Winter, and 611 supporters of Westport’s watershed who arrived ready to bid on 137 items in a silent auction certainly qualify as 'spectacular'.
Mr. Winter and the Watershed Alliance are birds of a feather when it comes to preserving the environment. During the past forty years, Winter has packed his soprano saxophone and sound equipment around the world in a mission to create musical conversations with endangered species such as wolves and humpback whales, and find inspiration within pristine environments like the Grand Canyon, which he believes may be slipping away. “We need to protect what we have left,” he said.
Standing on a small stage in the grand pavilion, he recreated his duets with wild creatures by weaving his solo saxophone melodies between synthesized music and recordings of the sounds of wolves, whales, elk, and songbirds he’s encountered on his journeys in the wilds of North America. Many of the songs were taken from recent albums titled “Prayer for the Wild Things” and “Songs of the Humpback Whale.”
Mr. Winter’s introduction for each song gave insight into his methods and the passion that drives him to attempt to achieve a sense of time and place by painting with sound. The soprano saxophone’s haunting, keening tones evoke Winter’s sense of awe and reverence for the raw beauty within the places he studies.
“I wanted to bring home the experience of the environment with sounds that echo the history and biology of the place, 11,000 feet high, above tree line. I wanted to capture the silence within the panorama around me,” he said during a visit to the Grand Canyon.
Photo: Two minutes before bidding closes
Since its inception in 1976 as the Westport River Defense Fund, the Watershed Alliance has been on a mission to capture and preserve Westport’s panoramas - its rivers, marshes, and beaches. The organization’s broad mission is much the same as its original one: “The beauty of the river, the wildfowl it supports, the abundance of shell fish and finfish it nourishes, is something very precious that must be preserved, promoted, and defended.”
Photo: Nearly "Zero - Waste" event
The summer gala generates a good deal of the money the WRWA relies upon to conduct its stewardship of the river. A unique twist of this year’s event is it was a nearly “zero-waste evening.” The cups, plates, and forks were made from corn-derived plastics (PLA resins) instead of petro-chemical based resins. Within 80 days, the refuse from the gala will be composted, dissolve and end benefiting someone's garden instead of adding to the landfill.
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