Danny Kuperberg is a pianist, producer and teacher who is mentor to professional studio musicians, singer songwriters and international dance music artists as well as piano beginners of any age. He helps musicians understand the language of music – and then gives them the ability to put it into practice.
- A working pianist, musician and teacher, Danny holds a BA(Hons) in Performance Art and an MA in Audio Production. To take pride in inspiring piano learners discover their innate musicality is the key to good teaching; more important than anything else. The link below is an example of me playing live in the recording studio: Piano With Danny short piano performance clip.
- International name acts: Danny has taught and played piano for both both established and successful musicians and emerging, young, talented musicians. I have both performed and worked for key Camden promoters and comperes such as Bugbear and Zaid Joseph respectively, who together along with his close friend Andy Boyd, manager of The Libertines’ and Babyshambles’, have given The Killers, Muse, Arctic Monkeys, The Maccabees and Amy Winehouse their key early gigs. My focus has always been on up-and-coming talent.
- Piano teaching: Here is some feedback from a student returning to the piano after many years:
‘Hi Danny, I wanted to say a thank you. About three or maybe four years ago, I took some lessons with you – maybe about 8 lessons or so. Anyhow I always remember your love of the piano and the joy of playing, and that has helped me get daily joy from playing. So your spirit of enthusiasm has helped to inspire me to just be curious and adventurous with my playing. It has positively influenced the quality of my life. Many many thanks. Ann Walsh.’ - Mentor to pop and dance music stars: I have both mentored and collaborated with top international stars, principally within the pop / dance / house and EDM (electronic dance music) genres, as well as leading sound engineers and music producers. See my News/Blog/Gigs for more info on my work with these exceptional and talented artists.
- Piano and vocal performance: I have played piano at most key jazz festivals across France as well as a residency at the legendary Mean Fiddler and gigs at key venues across London. See here for an example of piano performance.
- Singer songwriter with a popular YouTube channel. I have released two popular albums as well as several singles across all platforms (Amazon, Apple and Spotify). The tracks are deliberately very diverse in musical genre. There is everything from rock, dance music, house, pop, jazz and even hard-hitting spoken word genres. I write all of the music and lyrics as well as playing all of the instruments. These tracks are used as a starting point to discuss songwriting, arrangement techniques as well as studio production techniques with my professional student/clients.
- Organising gigs: Danny’s organised and mentored gigs for talented young musicians at important London music venues like The Dublin Castle, The Water Rats, Bar Vinyl, The Music Palace, Camden Proud and The Pigalle Club. All of these are authentic performing experiences that will help them achieve their musical ambitions, all different and relevant to each of them. See here for more info on this.
- Fundraising: I am in charge of music education fundraising for the London Borough of Barnet with BEAT (Barnet Education Arts Trust). BEAT’s over 3,000 Barnet young musicians have performed at such prestigious venues as the Royal Albert Hall and the Arts Depot as well as gigging all over North London. The money that Danny bids for and raises from key national funders ensures that these exciting music education and performance opportunities can happen.
- Lecturing and teaching: Danny’s taught music technology, audio production and studiocraft at graduate and postgraduate level at Hertfordshire University, De Montfort University and West Herts College. I was in charge of the Music Technology A-level at prestigious Woodhouse College teaching audio production techniques, music technology, songwriting and musical arrangement. I was involved in building two recording studio there; initially Hut 52, and then the main studio in the music department. I taught there two days a week between 2005 and 2018.
- Schools and college teaching: I have taught piano at primary and secondary level at schools in such diverse areas of London as Wood Green, Tottenham, Plaistow and Stratford (at NewVic College where I developed the Music Technology BTEC and A-level courses). I have also taught PMLD (profound and multiple learning difficulties) students at Mapledown special School in a BEAT collaboration with Open Orchestras, an inspiring inclusive group music making initiative for talented students with profound special needs.
- Highlights Clip Lockdown Show 26: Here is a link to a short two minute highlight clip of one of my 56 three-hour long online live-streamed performance shows: The five days a week show, each lasting around two hours had over 30,000 regular views a week during the first lockdown (29/3/20 – 10/11/20) as well as the two shorter subsequent lockdowns. I performed over 600 original piano arrangements, all requests from his online followers and friends during this bleak and lonely period. The show also included a Pop Quiz, music chat, interactive banter as well as a breakdown of some of the musical techniques going on in the piano arrangements performed. Here I am performing some boogie-woogie piano in late 2020: ‘Hey Danny Boogie Woogie!’
- CPT Theatre: I am both joint founder and was also musical director of Camden People’s Theatre which has now become a key off-West End venue for touring theatre companies across the UK to premier original and innovative theatre productions.
- TalkSport Radio: following a brief apprenticeship at BBC Three Counties Radio, Danny worked as a technical producer for three hour live radio shows including the Breakfast Show with Mike Parry and Alan Brazil, ‘It’s Round And It’s White’ with Ian Abrahams as well as afternoon slots with Hawksbee and Jacobs.
- BEAT: I was Head of Department for the A-level Music Technology course (2005 – 2018) helping to foster some of North London’s finest musical talent. BEAT (Barnet Education Arts Trust) also provides a unique opportunity for talented musicians from additional schools in the North London borough of Barnet (and some from the boroughs of Camden, Enfield and Haringey) to study A-level music at the Recently BEAT and Woodhouse College have parted ways and Woodhouse now runs the same Music Technology A-level in it’s own right.
Mission statement:
Danny Kuperberg is the antidote to music industry corporate, saccharine and sanitised music by numbers. Its become a race to the bottom both in terms of standardised music production techniques as well as exploitative music videos.
There was a time when music meant everything. Not anymore. I am all for paying one’s dues, gigging hard and, crucially, enjoying the ride while not ‘living the (phantom) dream.’
Whether surrounded by famous names everyone would’ve heard of at recording studios like Spaceward, arranging gigs in Camden, North London with the most important compères, managers and promoters like Zaid Joseph and Dublin Castle’s Bugbear Promotions, lecturing in Audio Production, fundraising for big music events – or just plain piano teaching, Danny has been there and done that.
Talented young musicians should have authenticity both in their music education as well as their performance opportunities. Heaven knows they deserve it. Who is responsible for today’s young talent or tomorrow’s exciting new talent?
A taste of this can be found on the ‘Gigs, news & Blog’ page.
Not just me, but so so many creative people are in it for the music. And not the hype.
Contact Danny: 078900 95198
Email: dannykuperberg@aol.com
Danny’s YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/NanFangEdwinDin