George Winston concert in Rochester rescheduled for October 5. Tickets on sale now for new date!

ROCHESTER, MN - Due to health issues, pianist George Winston has postponed his upcoming performance at the Mayo Civic Center originally scheduled for Thursday, April 24, 2008 to Sunday, October 5, 2008.

If you have already purchased tickets for the original date, they will be honored for the rescheduled performance. You do not need to get new tickets.

Requests for refunds will be processed through the original point of purchase and must be submitted by Friday, April 25, 2008.

With a tour schedule that includes more than 110 shows a year - solo piano concerts, solo guitar concerts, solo harmonica concerts, and solo piano dances, Winston is driven by a deep rooted realization that his craft is still evolving, and by his desire to bring music to life through live performances, musical interpretation of other composers’ works, and the recording and production of albums of many of those who have influenced and inspired him. Constantly traveling, he draws inspiration from the places and people he encounters.

"I play three styles: New Orleans R&B piano, and the majority of songs I play are in this style; stride piano, which was the main way of playing that I worked on after hearing Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson; and third, folk piano, the style that I came up with in 1971 which is influenced and inspired by instrumental R&B and rock, North American folk music, and even more by the sounds of the piano itself. Many of the songs on my albums are in this melodic folk style, and it has a rural sensibility, the opposite of the urban sensibility of the R&B piano and the stride piano. My approach is North American and I basically treat the piano as an Afro-American tuned drum, as well as using the natural overtones that the piano has."

In 1972 Winston recorded his first solo piano album Ballads and Blues 1972 for the late guitarist John Fahey’s Takoma Records. "I would not be doing anything that I am doing now - solo piano albums, solo instrumental concerts, and recording the great solo Hawaiian Slack Key guitarists on my own label - without John’s influence and inspiration," Winston states. "He is certainly the only person in the world who would have recorded a solo piano album of me in 1972." Since 1980 George has released ten more solo piano albums: Autumn (1980), Winter Into Spring (1982), December (1982), Summer (1991), Forest (1994), Linus & Lucy-The Music Of Vince Guaraldi (1996), Plains (1999), Night Divides The Day–The Music Of The Doors (2002), Montana-A Love Story (2004), and Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions-A Hurricane Relief Benefit (2006).