| Prayer for the Wild Things | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Paul Winter |
| Cover: | PrayerForTheWildThings.jpg |
| Released: | 1994 |
| Genre: | New age |
| Length: | 68:10 |
| Label: | Living Music |
| Producer: | Paul Winter |
| Prev Title: | Solstice Live! |
| Prev Year: | 1993 |
| Next Title: | Canyon Lullaby |
| Next Year: | 1997 |
Prayer for the Wild Things is an album released by Paul Winter in 1994. The album was commissioned to accompany a painting by artist Bev Doolittle, 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.
The calls of birds and mammals from the Rocky Mountains were used as part of the album. Animals included in the album are:
The recordings of animal calls along with saxophone solos were recorded at Gates of the Mountains, Glacier National Park, and Yellowstone National Park.