Brendan Power is a New Zealandharmonica player, composer and inventor, living in Britain. 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. Power wrote his thesis on the Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu. 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 Musical 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 partnerZombor Kovacs, Power started X-reed Harmonicas, a project devoted to making custom harmonicas.
Music
Power is well known for his extraordinary technical playing ability on the harmonica. Jools Holland introduced him as "a wonder on the harmonica" when Power played live with Tim Edey and Lucy Randall, on Later with Jools Holland in 2004, while Allmusic describes him as "a master of the chromatic harmonica and blues harp". Power has recorded more than 20 albums beginning with Country Harmonica and the latest being New Chinese Harmonica, and has recorded with many well-known Irish artists, including: Altan, Arcady, Mary Black, Paul Brady, Dónal Lunny, and Arty McGlynn. Power recorded harmonica on Sting's Ten Summoner's Tales, on Andy Irvine's Way Out Yonder, on Kate Bush's Director's Cut, and has recorded music for several movie soundtracks, including the Oscar-winning soundtrack for Atonement and Shanghai Noon
Inventions and innovations
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. Power invented the concept of 'Half-Valving' in 1980, and was a co-inventor with Will Scarlett of the 'extra-reed' concept for achieving greater pitch bending ability in harmonicas. 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.
