Education
Born in Kenya, Power"s family moved to New Zealand in 1965 where he later attended Canterbury University at Christchurch, gaining a Bachelor of Arts in English & Religious Studies, and a Master of Arts in Religious Studies.
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Brendan Power
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Career
Power discovered the harmonica at university after hearing Sonny Terry play at a concert by the blues duo Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. Power subsequently taught himself to play harmonica by ear and music soon took over from academia as his main passion. Power moved to London in 1992 where he worked for three years as a soloist in the Riverdance Show.
He was later employed by Suzuki al Instrument Corporation of Japan as their International Harmonica Specialist in 2008, a position he held for five years.
In April 2013, along with his business partner Zombor Kovacs, Power started X-reed Harmonicas, a project devoted to making custom harmonicas. Power has created several new harmonica tunings including Paddy Richter and PowerBender, and has introduced several new harmonica types, including the Slide Diatonic and ChromaBender.
In 2014 he took out a provisional patent on what he calls the "Twin-Harmonica System", a design enabling two harmonicas of any type to be linked together behind a master air-shifting slider for enhanced musical possibilities. by The Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica (SPAH) organisation of America.
Achievements
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In 1993, Power won the All-Ireland competition in the mouth organ and miscellaneous instrument categories. Power was voted International Harmonica Player of the Year 2011/12. by The Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica (SPAH) organisation of America. In February 2012, Power and Tim Edey won the Best Duo award at the 2012 British Broadcasting Corporation Radio 2 Folk Awards.
