In 1967 he formed the Paul Winter Consort, as a forum for the whole range of music he had come to love. The Consort recorded three albums for A&M Records between 1968 and 1970. ICARUS, a masterpiece that serves as a bridge between small-combo jazz and world music, was recorded in 1971, produced by George Martin, who called it "the finest record I have ever made." Considering that Martin produced nearly all the albums of the Beatles, the remark carried much importance.

The sounds of nature fascinated Winter, who first heard the songs of humpback whale in 1968. Winter and the Consort combined the sounds of whales, wolves, and birds with their acoustic improvisations on their next recording, COMMON GROUND, the first album to blend musical influences from around the globe with voices from nature.

In 1980, Winter and the group became artists-in-residence at New York City's Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the world's largest Gothic cathedral, and launched their own record label, Living Music. The Paul Winter Consort has also recorded in the General Assembly of the United Nations and the in the Grand Canyon.

The Consort toured the United States with Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko in 1985, and joined with a Russian chorus, the Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble, to record Earthbeat three years later - each a groundbreaking artistic achievement and social statement during the Cold War. In 1986, Winter worked with marine biologist Roger Payne and narrator Leonard Nimoy to record WHALES ALIVE!, an album of compositions based on melodies from whales.

Winter's most recent albums are squarely in the world-music canon.
BRAZILIAN DAYS (Living Music, 1998) is a collaboration with Oscar Castro-Neves. CELTIC SOLSTICE (Living Music, 1999) was a Grammy Award winning album.

Winter and his musicians have earned numerous additional awards for their albums. In 1983, SUN SINGER was named Best Jazz Album of 1983 by the National Association of Independent Record Distributors; SPANISH ANGEL and PRAYER FOR THE WILD THINGS won Grammy Awards back-to-back in 1993 and 1994. Winter produced Pete Seeger's PETE which received the "Best Traditional Folk Album" Grammy in 1996. Winter's album JOURNEY WITH THE SUN was nominated for a Grammy as "Best World Music Album."

In 2005, Paul Winter & Friends won the Grammy Award for "Best New Age Album" for his SILVER SOLSTICE, a 2-disc box set compilation celebrating 25 years of Winter Solstice concerts at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. His website can be found at www.livingmusic.com.