After graduating from Altoona Area High School in 1957, he spent the summer on a tour of state fairs in the Midwest with the conductor and members of the Ringling Brothers Circus Band.

In 1967 he started the Paul Winter Consort, influenced by Heitor Villa-Lobos and other Brazilian music,[1] to give ensemble playing and soloing equal importance, analogous to a democracy where every voice would count.

The name alludes to his desire to make timeless music in natural acoustic spaces like stone churches, canyons, and barns.

Winter is a member of the Lindisfarne Association, founded by William Irwin Thompson, of scientists, artists, scholars, and contemplatives devoted to the study and realization of a planetary culture.

Through this organization, Winter met the Very Reverend James Parks Morton, Dean of New York City's Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

Cosmologist Father Thomas Berry influenced Winter and affirmed his intent to awaken in people as sense of community.

Every year on the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi a choir of hundreds of voices, gospel singer Theresa Thomason, and the Forces of Nature Dance Theatre join the Consort in a liturgical performance of Winter's ecological and ecumenical Missa Gaia (Earth Mass).

Winter was thrilled by the soulful beauty of these humpback whale voices, in much the same way as when he had first heard jazz saxophonists like Charlie Parker.

Listening to the long, complex songs the whales repeat, he was amazed by their musical intelligence, and shocked to learn that these extraordinary creatures were rapidly being hunted to extinction.

(Winter believed that it contributed more, perhaps, towards saving whales and sea mammals than all other efforts put together, and re-released the album on his Living Music label in 1990.)

Winter traveled to Japan several times with the "Save the Whales" campaign; played benefits for Greenpeace and other organizations; and led music-making and whale-watching workshops on Cape Cod and in Baja California.

In 1975, Winter sailed aboard the Greenpeace V anti-whaling expedition for three days of playing saxophone to wild gray whales off the coast of Vancouver Island (Tofino).

[7] Photos of Winter and the whales [by Rex Weyler] appeared on wire services and in media around the world, helping the ultimate success of the mission against Soviet whalers.

In 1980, a chance encounter with a wild sea lion pup off Baja California affected Winter deeply, and inspired him to explore the realm of pinnipeds and the role of sound in their lives, in the same way he had immersed himself in learning about whales and wolves.

The resulting album, Callings, helped initiate a successful campaign to have Congress designate March 1 each year as "The Day of the Seal."

Harris was touring the country to raise awareness about wolves and trying to counter the prejudice that was responsible for the extermination of these creatures from the wild.

In 1968, Winter began introducing improvisations into the Consort's concerts as a way for the group (cello, alto flute, English horn and sax) to play freely.

He calls his workshops "Adventures in SoundPlay" No "wrong notes", no worship of virtuosity, the dissolving of fears – all these things served to open new paths.