Patina

$10 in Advance / $15 at the Door
Tickets are available at Music Mart (formerly Hardt’s Music) and Eventbrite until January 11 at 4:00pm.

Buy tickets on Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.com/e/patina-at-the-winona-arts-center-tickets-1091835763159

Coffeehouse & gallery open at 6:00pm.

Patina is a violin, whistle, bodhrán, accordion and guitar band that plays mixed Celtic, folk and original music. Patina started in early 2016 as a trio with Mike Watson, Kara Mae Prosen & Sue Lee Ringwelski coming together to play for a wedding. It was so much fun they decided to keep playing together. Since the beginning of Patina they have had up to six band members in the past, at one time or another, who have collaborated with and helped to bring the sound to where it is today. With the changes in the band in spring 2024, Patina is now a 3 member collaboration of sound springing from the love of many types of music by Kara Mae Prosen, Sue Lee Ringwelski, and Greg Peterson.

Sue Lee Ringwelski has been sharing her easy listening music with her friends and family in homes, at campfires, family functions, events and coffee houses on a regular basis for many years. She started playing Irish music with Mike Watson and Kara Mae White in the spring of 2016 and now enjoys performing the Irish songs & tunes that Patina brings to those venues and more. Sue Lee has written or collaborated on many of the originals that Patina now plays. She loves the stories as well as the traditional musical sound of many of their originals.

Kara Mae has had sixteen years of classical training with her instrument. She is an award winning fiddler having won a fiddle contest at the Lacrosse, WI Irish Festival. If you ask her about her true passion for making music, she will tell you that she is an “Irish fiddler” first and foremost. Kara Mae has a high energy playing style that brings the “Irish” into many of Patina’s songs. Her beautiful singing voice also enhances the stories that are inherent in many of the Irish folk songs that Patina plays.

Kara Mae is a prolific musical artist. She has written many new beautiful tunes for Patina over the past years that are sometimes very unique in time signature & rhythm and other times authentically Celtic sounding.

In the late 1980’s Greg’s wife, Kathy, brought home from the library a Celtic compilation cassette entitled “The Celts Rise Again.” Since that fateful day over thirty years ago Greg has been hooked on Celtic music in all its forms. His first Bodhrán was purchased from the maker in the village of Roundstone on a trip to Ireland. It’s been to many Irish music sessions. In Winona he ran an Irish Music session for three years. Today Greg plays a ‘Brendan White’ Bodhrán for Patina. The high whistles are made by ‘Michael Burke Whistles’ and ‘McNeela Music Instruments’ and the low whistle is made by ‘Carbony Celtic Winds’. He also plays the accordion and backing guitar. Greg is thrilled to be playing in Patina with such a fine (and fun) group of musicians.