A bittersweet update for you all.

Ann Rabson, who was scheduled to be on piano faculty for the 2011 Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Festival, has had a recurrence of cancer, and therefore is taking some well-deserved time to heal and won’t be joining us in Port Townsend. Our thoughts are with her.

In her place, the fantastic blues and boogie-woogie piano player Arthur Migliazza will teach intermediate and advanced piano to workshop participants. Arthur was born in Hyattsville, Maryland, and began taking classical piano lessons at age nine. He soon found himself under the tutelage of Festival alum Judy Luis-Watson, who introduced him to the soul in blues music. He began listening to blues piano greats such as Otis Spann, Champion Jack Dupree, Jimmy Yancey, Professor Longhair, Jay McShann, Katie Webster, and many more.

Inspired by his immense talent, blues piano luminaries such as Ann Rabson (from Saffire – the Uppity Blues Women), Mr. B, and the great New Orleans keyboard master Henry Butler have all taken Arthur under their collective wing.

In 2005, Arthur was awarded the Tucson Area Music Award for Best Keyboardistand in 2010 he was inducted into the Arizona Blues Hall of Fame. During the past several years, Arthur has been featured on the Cincinnati Blues Fest’s Arches Piano Stage multiple times, and has taught blues piano at Augusta Blues Week in Elkins, WV, and here at Centrum.

In 2009 Arthur released an album of songs with Blues Harmonica player Tom Walbank entitled “Burn Your Bridges. In January 2010 the duo were finalists at the International Blues Challenge held in Memphis, TN. 2010 also saw the release of an EP entitled “Clamdiggers”, featuring Arthur on piano and keyboards, Mike Levy on bass and Alejandro Canelos on drums. Arthur currently resides in New York City.