My best Christmas gift this year (aside from my Frosted Flakes pajamas) was that my older sister took me to go see George Winston in concert while I was visiting her in Minneapolis last week. I absolutely love his music, and I never dreamed of being able to see him perform live. It was an excellent show, too. George Winston’s albums are the first piano albums I’ve ever listened to, and I’ve been listening to them for probably over ten years now, and I’m nowhere near tired of them.
I was expecting that, since it was the holidays, most of his selection would be from the December album. I was wrong about that, he played stuff from all his albums, maybe doing three or four selections from December. The one that I remember the best was Tamarack Pines from Forest. It’s an incredibly interesting piece, and it was real treat to see him do it live. I never really thought about how much he’d be moving his hands. Sometimes he would grip the strings inside the piano for extra effect which was weird, but it worked.
Something I didn’t know is that he also plays the guitar. He did about three songs on his guitar. He played the harmonica once, too. Overall, the guy was a really interesting character. He was very modest about his work. When he first came out, he just went straight to the piano and said what he was going to play first. Before each piece he’d say who or what had inspired his work, and after each piece he’d say nothing more than “thank you very much,” and quickly moved on. At the end of the concert he barely even bowed before briskly striding off the stage. You’d certainly never pick him out from a crowd, that’s for sure.
Great music, though. He played about eight of my favorites, which I wrote down, but I left the paper and program back east. I do remember he did Carol of the Bells, though. That one was amazing, too. I love his stuff. 🙂