RIDGEFIELD — Jon Anderson, the angelic voice and creative force who transported millions of fans into the world of the progressive British rock band Yes was upbeat as The Newtown Bee reached him at his northern California home the morning after Father’s Day.

Slipping into the conversation with some chipper small talk, Anderson said he was thrilled to have spent the previous day on phone calls with his children before he and his wife, Jane, enjoyed a traditional English supper of baked beans and toast.

Quick to dismiss any ideas that his upcoming tour with the all-star students of the Paul Green Rock Academy would be a precursor to another reunion with Yes bandmates Trevor Rabin and Rick Wakeman, Anderson was otherwise open and eager to talk about a number of things relating to his reunion with the young musicians who would accompany him on a baker’s dozen of headline shows celebrating and performing the entire Close to the Edge album on the occasion of its 50th anniversary this year — along with other Yes and solo material.

That tour will make its only Connecticut stop at The Ridgefield Playhouse on Saturday, July 16.

The 7 pm show will also feature more than a dozen young and stellar backing musicians between the ages of 14 and 17 years old, who Anderson said had already been boot camping with Green himself for two weeks perfecting the fine nuances and complex details of arguably, among the greatest of all progressive rock anthems, the 18-plus minute title track “Close to the Edge,” along with “And You and I” and album closer “Siberian Khatru.”

In a recent social network post announcing the 13-city tour that will circuit the northeast, along with dates in Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin, Anderson wrote: “There are so many wonderful moments in my musical life, and being on stage with these young teenagers performing classic Yes songs, makes me so happy and proud ... It’s a marvel and a tremendous pleasure for me. They are a joy to be with and so much fun!!! I am grateful, thankful and feel very blessed to be able to sing along with them. Jane and I love them all.”

Besides his unmistakable soaring tenor vocals, Anderson co-composed most of the biggest hits that Yes produced, including “I’ve Seen All Good People,” “Roundabout,” and “Owner Of A Lonely Heart.” He was a major creative influence behind the ground-breaking album Fragile as well as the series of epic, complex pieces such as “Awaken,” “Gates of Delirium,” and especially “Close to the Edge,” which were central to the band’s success.

To date, Anderson has released 15 solo albums outside of his work with Yes including 2019’s critically acclaimed project, 1000 Hands: Chapter One — which is where our conversation began...

The Newtown Bee: Your last solo project, 1000 Hands, has been in the hands of fans now for a little over three years; what kind of feedback have you been getting about it?

Jon Anderson: The amazing thing was that I’d never seen such universal and glowing response from critics around the world who all liked the album very much, and we’re actually right in the middle of completing ‘Chapter Two,’ with Michael Franklin producing. So we never stopped thinking about carrying on with the idea of bringing in very, very interesting musicians like we did on the first project. There’s so much incredible talent around and Michael knows so many musicians who he gets to play on the songs I send him. So we’re about half-way through the production and it should be ready for next year, we hope (laughing).

The Bee: Pivoting to the tour at hand and your visit with us at The Ridgefield Playhouse, does the involvement of such a large group of young musicians — nearly three times the number of your original band — all playing on stage with you at the same time require a lot of coordination with you to make it happen?

Anderson: I think Paul Green has recruited such a talented group of young musicians, and he’s already been working with them for the past two weeks on the show that we’re doing — the whole Close to the Edge album and a lot of other things. And it’s a continuous surprise for me, a surprise that these young people can really play the music — there’s no fear. They just love the Yes music and I feel really proud that I’m able to go out and enjoy another five or six weeks of touring with them. It will be fun.

The Bee: The original production of Close to the Edge is so full, did you bring in any backing musicians or voices to help create that orchestral sound?

Anderson: Not really, we had Steve (Howe), and Chris (Squire) and myself doing backup vocal harmonies and things like that. So we never really got into bringing in extra people. But with the Paul Green kids, we’ve got four extra singers who can do harmonies along with me and help project that middle section of Close to the Edge. It’s a wonderful experience working with these people because, first of all, they’re very happy, very joyful, very grateful to be doing what we do. So am I!

The Bee: You’ve been doing Yes music with Paul Green musicians for almost 20 years. During that time I imagine you’ve done your fair share of coaching around some of the structure and composition of these complex songs you’ve written.

Anderson: The interesting thing is, when I started working with the School of Rock, as it was known 20 years ago, the song they first sent me on cassette was “Heart of the Sunrise.” And I was amazed they played it so well. Bringing it full circle, “Close to the Edge” was introduced for the first time during a five gig tour earlier this year. So it was kind of an initiation for them to learn about not rushing through a three or four-minute piece of music. I mean, this is an 18-minute piece of music, so you’ve got to take your time.

The Bee: That’s a great point. So many of these musicians probably grew up with the foundation of three or four-minute songs, and probably little or no concept of an entire album being tied together thematically.

Anderson: The advantage of working with young musicians like this, is they’re very open. And it took awhile, but eventually they get it. It took a lot of rehearsing with Paul Green last year, but I knew it would work. So to do this tour now, playing this album 50 years later, it’s just amazing when you think about it. We took a gamble and this was the year. Paul said ‘I want to do it,’ and I said, go ahead and get them to play it. So we broke the song down to four separate sections, then stick it all together and see how it comes out. And it worked!

The Bee: When you originally transitioned “Close to the Edge” into a live composition, were there any parts that were particularly challenging to perform outside the studio?

Anderson: Working with Chris, Bill Bruford, and Steve, and Rick Wakeman — at that point in time, it was like being part of a university of music, because they could play anything. And I just sort of had this visual concept along with Steve of a long form piece that we would have to perform in sections. That’s how that whole piece was created, and thank God we had Eddy Offord, a very talented engineer and producer. And we actually were departing into a different world, this was rock and roll taking on aspects of classical music, so we were treading on uncharted, maybe even dangerous ground. But I believed in what we were going to do. I know the record company just wanted us to churn out another version of Fragile (Yes’ 1971 album), and I just said no, we’re not going to do that — we’re jumping into the big world of structural music.

The Bee: The record company wasn’t given much of a choice at that point.

Anderson: That’s how it worked. And it got to the point after a couple of weeks, as the guys were rehearsing the music from one section, I was writing the next, then we would go on to the next and we all seemed to know where we were heading. And by the end of about six weeks, we had finished not only “Close to the Edge,” but the entire album. It was an amazing feeling. Then it was time to take it out on tour. And that was sort of the big moment in our lives, playing this 20-minute piece of music in front of 10,000 people in auditoriums around the world. And each time we did it, you could hear a pin drop. It was an extraordinary time.

The Bee: At the same time you were working on the music, (artist) Roger Dean was working on the concepts that would eventually become that whimsical imaginary world at the edge that was portrayed on that double fold album cover. In some ways, to me, that art greatly enhanced the listening experience by presenting a visual you could really get lost in while you listened to the music.

Anderson: A lot of that stems from The Who and Tommy, or you could even go back to the Sgt Pepper album. Every couple of years an album would come out and it would almost sound like it was created around the album cover artwork. With Roger, that image proved to be a perfect fit. We started sending him rough mixes of the music after just the first week of recording, I remember we were so excited about sending him five minutes of one piece and three minutes of another just to keep him informed, because he lived a long way from London where we were recording. So by the time he got halfway through with that visual scape of it, it was like, my God, this is going to be beautiful!

The Bee: While "Siberian Khatru" was the closing song on Close to the Edge, it was famously the opening song on thousands of Yes concerts over the years. How did this song become such a long-term concert opener?

Anderson: Well, we had used "Yours Is No Disgrace" up until then for the beginning of the show but "Siberian Khatru" became the next one for many years. That's the way it works, you find a song that powerful and sort of pushes the show along so the audience can't breathe for five or ten minutes.

The Bee: It's been a few weeks since we lost Vangelis. Is there any specific memory of him over your many meetings that inspired you to become a better musician or a more inspired artist?

Anderson: Vangelis was my mentor. At that time in my life I could play guitar and write songs with simple chords. Then I watched this guy at the piano and at the keyboards and I thought, my God this guy is enormously good. You know you meet people in your life - or t least I've met people in the course of my career who just give you a shock. They fill you with energy. I thought this guy could do anything, and of course Vangelis could - he could play anything from a symphony to commercial pop and the songs I brought to him and he would make it sound better. He wrote beautiful, soulful songs, and on the day he passed into heaven I found myself laughing because we always had such a fun time together.

For more information or to purchase tickets ($85 — $95) go online at ridgefieldplayhouse.org or you can visit or call the box office (203) 438-5795. The Ridgefield Playhouse is a nonprofit performing arts center located at 80 East Ridge, parallel to Main Street.

Watch Jon Anderson and the Paul Green Rock Academy all stars recreating the Yes Classic "Heart of the Sunrise" at this Ocean City show in August 2021:

Jon Anderson with the Paul Green Rock Academy all stars present "Owner of A Lonely Heart" at a St. Charles concert in August of 2021