Hello, my name is George Schumann. Do you need a solo guitar player for your wedding ceremony, corporate event, or other special occasion? Please consider hiring me!
I have over 40 years of playing experience, including wedding ceremonies, cocktail hours, dinners, Christmas and birthday parties, corporate events, retirement community concerts, and other fun gatherings.
I regularly perform at restaurants around Central Ohio, providing relaxing and enjoyable ambient music for guests to listen to while dining and sipping cocktails. My music is all instrumental, and the volume during dinner is always below the level of conversation.
I play solo guitar arrangements of jazz standards from the Great American Songbook, as well as classic and modern love songs, and classical guitar Romantic-Era pieces.
Over the years I have learned dozens of specially requested songs that I performed during various parts of the wedding ceremonies. My solo guitar arrangements also provide perfect background music pre-ceremony as guests are arriving, being seated, and awaiting the start of the ceremony.
Studying the guitar has been a lifelong passion of mine. I went to Five Towns College on Long Island and got a degree in Contemporary Music. I studied with several New York-area guitarists, including the Great Joe Carbone and Peter Rogine. Joe and Pete taught me the main style I still play to this day, known as chord-melody guitar, in the plectrum or pick style. It is a truly beautiful style of guitar playing!
I studied jazz improvisation at the University of Pittsburgh School of Music with the great saxophone player Nathan Davis and with guitarist John Maione.
Back on Long Island, I was blessed to meet and study with Bernard Addison, a pioneer of the jazz guitar in the 1920's through the 1940's, who showed me the beautiful (and now quite rare) style of swing guitar, originally popular on the recordings of Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, and Fletcher Henderson, and many other of Bernard's contemporaries.
In 1996, I moved to Columbus where I continued jazz studies with guitarist Don Hales, and studied finger-picking technique with Bill Dutcher.
In addition to playing weddings and restaurants, I have played with several Rock and Blues bands, guitar duos, and even a Reggae Band. I have regularly played guitar and bass with contemporary Christian worship teams at the Vineyard Church.
I have been teaching guitar at my home in Pickerington for many years, and I have been teaching at the Music & Arts store in Reynoldsburg since January of 2015.
I have been playing weddings around Central Ohio for years, and have traveled to perform for wedding ceremonies, cocktail hour receptions, anniversary parties, and other special events all over Ohio, and in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. And now, I would be honored to have the privilege of performing at, and being a part of, your special day!