Explore a fan-made website dedicated to Windham Hill’s classic ‘A Winter’s Solstice’ series.

Like the equally anomalous ECM label before it, Windham Hill is a label with its own sound, music so distinctive that when their releases initially hit record stores, they drew so much genre confusion by shop employees that many were forced to build the label its own section. Even Billboard magazine faced issues: As Windham Hill’s popularity grew and their records ascended on the charts, the magazine made multiple attempts to classify it — usually either in jazz or new age.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Windham Hill is also synonymous with winter holiday music. Over the years, the label released a number of A Winter’s Solstice instrumental compilations featuring original compositions alongside new arrangements of classics from their core roster of artists: Shadowfax, Mark Isham, Liz Story, Will Ackerman, George Winston, amongst others. The songs featured on these compilations largely avoided the usual Christmas jingle bells and holly jolly themes, instead offering an (arguably) more musical alternative to the holiday season.

William Ackerman: “The Winter Solstice compilations came about in large part because I hate Christmas music. At home, my father made Christmas about Gregorian chants. I loved that, so I never made the leap to “Jingle Bells.” Winston’s “December” opened the door for me. It’s not a Christmas record, but it conveys the essence and mood of a season. I thought, let’s do an album of Christmas music that isn’t Christmas music. It was a tremendous success.”

Check out a fan-made website dedicated to the many holiday albums released on Windham Hill Records over the years, from the very first Winter Solstice album through more recent reissues: https://www.awintersolstice.com/

A brief history from the A Winter Solstice website:

“Windham Hill was growing by leaps and bounds by 1984. Only a few years earlier, in an attempt to lighten the workload at their Palo Alto offices, Anne Robinson and William Ackerman, owners of Windham Hill Records, decided to create a Sampler of annual catalog offerings in one compilation album, featuring their artists and their albums from over the past year or two. These Samplers (starting with Windham Hill Sampler ’81) proved to be very popular not only with marketers, radio and journalists, but with the label’s end customers as well. Says Ackerman:

‘The only reason I came up with the Windham Hill Samplers was that I got tired of using the hole punch to punch the corners of the promotional copies of records that were going to stores or to radio stations…. I came up with the idea that if I took one track of each one of these people and put it on an LP then all I have to do is punch one hole. I’m now punching one-twelfth the holes that I used to. It was literally that utilitarian. I sent this to my distributors and everyone said, “Why don’t we market this?” Everyone said there are other labels that have done this. Warner Brothers did it. Reprise did it. They were never big sellers but it did introduce people to music. So I said “Fine. Let’s give it a try.” Every single Windham Hill Sampler became a Gold or Platinum record. We sold millions of these things.‘

Continuing off this popular format, Ackerman and executive Dawn Atkinson decided to begin producing Holiday-themed albums featuring the Label’s artists. Starting as an experiment in 1985, Ackerman and Atkinson combined both original solicitations from their favorite Label artists as well as pre-recorded tracks from Windham Hill current catalog. Instead of reflecting a strictly “Christmas” repertoire, Ackerman and Atkinson allowed original compositions, covers of 19th and 18th Century Classical work, and the more traditional Christmas tracks. In doing so the album combined a unique and eclectic mix of original compositions and arrangements, but carried a familiar and distinct musical flavor, captivating audiences and creating an ever-more popular formula for Holiday music.”

A Winter’s Solstice eventually spun off into multiple Holiday-themed albums for the label, with Jazz, Rock, Pop, Folk and singer-songwriter styles emerging on the Windham Hill label. At the heart of the label’s albums remained, however, the Windham Hill Winter’s Solstice records, featuring the label’s most revered artists and their captivating arrangements and performances.