Prayer for the Wild Things is an album released by Paul Winter

Paul Winter

Paul Winter is an American saxophonist , and is a six-time Grammy Award nominee.- Biography :Paul Winter attended Altoona Area High School and graduated in 1957...

 in 1994. The album was commissioned accompany a painting by artist Bev Doolittle

Bev Doolittle

Bev Doolittle is an American artist working mainly in watercolor paints. She paints scenes of the American West that feature themes of Native American life, wild animals, horses, and landscapes. Doolittle's technical mastery of the watercolor medium has brought her notice since her early work as a...

, which is also titled Prayer For The Wild Things. A portion of this painting is seen on the album cover.

Paul Winter created the album to depict in the listener's mind a journey through a day and night in the Northern Rockies, and based it on "a series of vignettes about the animals, with the saxophone recurring throughout as a kind of interlocutor". After choosing which animals to represent on the album, Winter chose instruments to accompany each animal that he felt represented that animal in some way. To demonstrate how all of these animals are interconnected in life, the melodies played on these instruments were written so that they could all be interwoven.

Paul traveled around the area of the Northern Rockies during the creation of this album, during which he went to a number of National Parks and played improvised duets with many of the animals in the parks. These duets were recorded, and many of them were put on the album as well.

The album won the Grammy for best new age album in 1995.

Track listing

1. "Eagle Mountain" (Winter)
2. "Round Dance" (Neskahi)
3. "On The River" (Winter)
4. "Buffalo Prairie" (Winter)
5. "Osprey" (Winter)
6. "Grizzly Bear Cubs With Their Mom After Breakfast" (Friesen, Haddad, Winter)
7. "Tritones In The Canyon" (Winter)
8. "Moose Walk" (Velez, Winter)
9. "Gates Of The Mountain" (Winter)
10. "Cougar Bassoon" (Urbinato)
11. "Antelope Dreams Of Her African Cousins" (Winter)
12. "Afternoon's End" (Velez, Winter)
13. "Sunset On Eagle Mountain" (Winter)
14. "White Goat Of The Rockies" (Friesen, Winter)
15. "Loon On Mud Pond" (Winter)
16. "Night Voices"
17. "Elk Horns" (Clark, Winter)
18. "North Fork Wolves In The Midnight Rain" (Winter)
19. "Night Into Dawn" (Winter)
20. "Dance Of All Beings" (Neskahi)
21. "Eagle Mountain" (Winter)

Personnel

• Paul Winter - soprano sax
• Eugene Friesen
  Eugene Friesen
  Eugene Friesen is an American cellist and composer.Friesen is a graduate of the Yale School of Music. He has been a member of the Paul Winter Consort since 1978, and performs with Howard Levy and Glen Velez as Trio Globo...
  
   - cello
• Randy Wolfgang - English horn
• John Urbinato - bassoon
• John Clark
  John Clark
  -Entertainers:*John Clark , opera singer known as Signor Brocolini*John Clark , British actor, ex-husband of Lynn Redgrave*John Clark , jazz horn player and composer-Politicians, judges, and civil servants:...
  
   - French horn
• Mark Perchanok - heckelphone
• Dennis Smylie
  Dennis Smylie
  Dennis Smylie is an American bass clarinetist, known particularly for his performances of contemporary classical music.He studied at the Juilliard School under Joseph Allard...
  
   - contrabass clarinet
• Paul Halley
  Paul Halley
  Paul Halley is an organist, singer, pianist, and composer. He is perhaps best known as being a member of and composer for the Paul Winter Consort.- Biography :...
  
   - pipe organ
• Glen Velez
  Glen Velez
  Glen Velez is an 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....
  
   - percussion
• Jamey Haddad
  Jamey Haddad
  Jamey George Haddad is an American percussionist working primarily in the fields of jazz and world music, and specializing in hand drums.-Biography:...
  
   - percussion
• Gordon Gottlieb - percussion
• Arlie Neskahi and the White Eagle Singers

Animals Of The Rocky Mountains

The calls of birds and mammals from the Rocky Mountains

Rocky Mountains

The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...

 were used as part of the album. Animals included in the album are:

• Elk
  Elk
  The Elk is the large deer, also called Cervus canadensis or wapiti, of North America and eastern Asia.Elk may also refer to:Other antlered mammals:...
  
  
• Bison
  American Bison
  The American bison , also commonly known as the American buffalo, is a North American species of bison that once roamed the grasslands of North America in massive herds...
  
  
• Grizzly Bear
  Grizzly Bear
  The grizzly bear , also known as the silvertip bear, the grizzly, or the North American brown bear, is a subspecies of brown bear that generally lives in the uplands of western North America...
  
  
• Loon
  Loon
  The loons or divers are a group of aquatic birds found in many parts of North America and northern Eurasia...
  
  
• Mountain Lion
• Bald Eagle
  Bald Eagle
  The Bald Eagle is a bird of prey found in North America. It is the national bird and symbol of the United States of America. This sea eagle has two known sub-species and forms a species pair with the White-tailed Eagle...
  
  
• Osprey
  Osprey
  The Osprey , sometimes known as the sea hawk or fish eagle, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey. It is a large raptor, reaching more than in length and across the wings...
  
  
• Antelope
  Antelope
  Antelope is a term referring to many even-toed ungulate species indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelopes comprise a miscellaneous group within the family Bovidae, encompassing those old-world species that are neither cattle, sheep, buffalo, bison, nor goats...
  
  
• Canada Goose
  Canada Goose
  The Canada Goose is a wild goose belonging to the genus Branta, which is native to arctic and temperate regions of North America, having a black head and neck, white patches on the face, and a brownish-gray body....
  
  
• Wolf
• Raven
  Raven
  Raven is the common name given to several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus—but in Europe and North America the Common Raven is normally implied...
  
  
• American Bittern
  American Bittern
  The American Bittern is a wading bird of the heron family Ardeidae. New evidence has led the American Ornithologists' Union to move the heron family into the order Pelecaniformes .-Description:...
  
  
• White-Tailed Deer
  White-tailed Deer
  The white-tailed deer , also known as the Virginia deer or simply as the whitetail, is a medium-sized deer native to the United States , Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru...
  
  
• Coyote
  Coyote
  The coyote , also known as the American jackal or the prairie wolf, is a species of canine found throughout North and Central America, ranging from Panama in the south, north through Mexico, the United States and Canada...
  
  
• Boreal Owl
• Golden Eagle
  Golden Eagle
  The Golden Eagle is one of the best known birds of prey in the Northern Hemisphere. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. Once widespread across the Holarctic, it has disappeared from many of the more heavily populated areas...
  
  
• Sandhill Crane
  Sandhill Crane
  The Sandhill Crane is a large crane of North America and extreme northeastern Siberia. The common name of this bird references habitat like that at the Platte River, on the edge of Nebraska's Sandhills in the American Midwest...
  
  
• Hermit Thrush
  Hermit Thrush
  The Hermit Thrush is a medium-sized North American thrush. It is not very closely related to the other North American migrant species of Catharus, but rather to the Mexican Russet Nightingale-thrush.-Description:...
  
  
• Trumpeter Swan
  Trumpeter Swan
  The Trumpeter Swan, Cygnus buccinator, is the largest native North American bird, if measured in terms of weight and length, and is the largest living waterfowl species on earth. It is the North American counterpart of the European Whooper Swan.-Description:Males typically measure from and weigh...
  
  
• Whooping Crane
  Whooping Crane
  The whooping crane , the tallest North American bird, is an endangered crane species named for its whooping sound. Along with the Sandhill Crane, it is one of only two crane species found in North America. The whooping crane's lifespan is estimated to be 22 to 24 years in the wild...
  
  
• Uphill Sandpiper
• Ruffled Grouse
• Greater Prairie Chicken
  Greater Prairie Chicken
  The Greater Prairie Chicken or Pinnated Grouse, Tympanuchus cupido, is a large bird in the grouse family. This North American species was once abundant, but has become extremely rare or extinct over much of its range due to habitat loss. There are current efforts to help this species gain the...
  
  
• Willow Ptarmigan
• Belted Kingfisher
  Belted Kingfisher
  The Belted Kingfisher is a large, conspicuous water kingfisher, the only member of that group commonly found in the northern United States and Canada. It is depicted on the 1986 series Canadian $5 note. All kingfishers were formerly placed in one family, Alcedinidae, but recent research suggests...
  
  
• Swainson's Thrush
  Swainson's Thrush
  Swainson's Thrush , also called Olive-backed Thrush, is a medium-sized thrush. This species is 16–18 cm in length, and has the white-dark-white underwing pattern characteristic of Catharus thrushes...
  
  
• Western Meadowlark
  Western Meadowlark
  Not to be confused with Eastern MeadowlarkThe Western Meadowlark is a medium-sized icterid bird, about 8.5 in long. It nests on the ground in open country in western and central North America. It feeds mostly on insects, but also seeds and berries...
  
  

The recordings of animal calls along with saxophone solos were recorded at Gates of the Mountains, Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park may refer to:*Glacier National Park in British Columbia, Canada*Glacier National Park in Montana, USA-See also:*Glacier Bay National Park, in Alaska, USA*Los Glaciares National Park, in Argentina...

, and Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, although it also extends into Montana and Idaho...

.