Pianist George Winston Coming to The Lincoln Theatre, 4/17

Inspired by the seasons and topographies, George Winston's concerts feature a variety of styles including melodic folk piano, New Orleans R&B piano, and stride piano. This concert will feature Winston's "Winter Show," which will include melodic fall and winter type songs, some of Vince Guaraldi's Peanuts pieces, works inspired by the New Orleans piano and stride piano traditions, and songs from his upcoming album, Spring Carousel - A Cancer Research Benefit, scheduled for release in 2016.

CAPA presents George Winston at the Lincoln Theatre (769 E. Long St.) on Sunday, April 17, at 8 pm. Tickets are $30 and $40 at the CAPA Ticket Center (39 E. State St.), all Ticketmaster outlets, and www.ticketmaster.com. To purchase tickets by phone, please call (614) 469-0939 or (800) 745-3000.

Inspired by R&B, jazz, blues, and rock (especially The Doors), Winston began playing organ in 1967. In 1971, he switched to the acoustic piano after hearing recordings from the 1920s and the 1930s by the legendary stride pianists Thomas "Fats" Waller and Teddy Wilson. In addition to working on stride piano, he also created his own style of melodic, instrumental music on solo piano called folk piano.

Since 1972, Winston has released 13 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), Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions-A Hurricane Relief Benefit (2006), Love Will Come-The Music of Vince Guaraldi Vol. 2 (2010), and Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions 2-A Louisiana Wetlands Benefit (2012).

In 2001, Winston released Remembrance-A Memorial Benefit, a seven-song EP of piano, guitar, and harmonica solos to benefit those affected by 9/11. He has also worked with the late George Levenson of Informed Democracy on three projects-a solo guitar track for Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, and tracks of piano, guitar, and harmonica solos for Pumpkin Circle and Bread Comes to Life. In addition, he recorded the solo piano track for the children's story The Velveteen Rabbit.

Winston is presently concentrating on live performances, playing solo piano concerts, solo guitar concerts, solo harmonica concerts, and solo piano dances. He is also working on solo guitar, recording the masters of the Hawaiian slack key guitar for an extensive series of albums. Slack key is the name for the beautiful solo fingerstyle guitar tradition, unique to Hawaii, which began in the early 1800s and predated the steel guitar by more than half a century.

Photo credit: Joe del Tufo

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