Holiday Season 2009


And so the Holiday season is upon us and for me, not being a Black Friday shopper, it begins today. The George Maurer Trio is heading for Crosby, MN tonight for a gig entertaining the local hospital staff, we stay overnight and then head for Roseau, MN in the morning for a nearly identical gig entertaining the staff of their hospital. If you didn't look at the map, Roseau is a mere 9 miles from Canada in mid-western Minnesota and the route from Crosby to Roseau takes around 6-1/2 hours. The drive back to St. Cloud on Monday morning will take around 7-8 hours. There goes working on Monday.

Tuesday (12/8) sees me playing holiday music with Andrew Walesch, a talented young singer who is out pimping his new holiday CD. We play two shows, one at 2 PM and one at 7:30 PM.

Thursday (12/10) is a private party for General Mills at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis.

Saturday (12/13) is a concert at St. Edwards Catholic Church (I'd link to their site, but it's a piece of crap) in Princeton, MN.

Monday the 14th is our annual Holiday Concert on our "home stage" at the Paramount Theater in St. Cloud. This is always a great time and we tend to pull out all the stops with an 18-piece big band, dancers, tons of singing and, of course, the annual coffee toss where I throw 2 oz. sample bags of coffee into the audience.

On Sunday the 20th we play our annual gig at Faith Lutheran Church in Spicer, MN. This one tends to be fun, too, although since we use the church's sound system, with the speakers in the ceiling and no monitors, it's a little hard for us to hear. The audience does just fine.

Christmas eve eve (12/23) brings us back to the Dakota for another holiday tradition, another coffee toss and an cramped, but intimate stage (we bring the big band onto a stage more suited to small combos).

And we wrap up the holiday season with on New Years Eve at the Grandview Lodge in Nisswa, MN.

All in all it will be a very busy holiday season playing my guitar and I wouldn't have it any other way. Personally I'm glad that, apart from this weekend, we don't have to do any long-haul traveling.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

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