Kieran White at the keyboard, his sublime skills to be heard at events, restaurants, weddings, clubs, pubs, street corners, theatres, cinemas, care homes, wherever, whenever
YORK composer, pianist, busker, teacher, university tutor and Buster Keaton aficionado Kieran White has died suddenly.
His wife Kate posted on Facebook last Thursday “I am writing with the sad news that my beautiful husband Kieran died last night [19/2/2025] after a sudden heart attack on Monday and a few days in the ICU [Intensive Care Unit] at York Hospital.
“He was the love of my life and he will be greatly missed. He was a sweet, loving, funny, clever and talented man. Please leave your thoughts and wishes here.”
In response, so far, more than 200 tributes have poured into Facebook from fellow musicians, former piano pupils and friends, one recalling how Kieran would wheel his piano to his favourite busking spot, outside St Michael le Belfrey, even in the snow, that spot being on York’s windiest corner to boot.
York singer, event promoter and public speaker Big Ian Donaghy has posted two videos, one taken at a care home for dementia patients, where a curve-ball request for Kieran to play Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody had Kieran mopping his brow, exhaling , then saying “Go on then, let’s have a go…what could possibly go wrong?!”. He duly tamed that wild rock opera behemoth off the cuff.
“Kieran had a gentle way and a rare empathy with folks living with dementia,” wrote Big Ian, whose second video showed Kieran and a man who had played piano all his life until the onset of dementia seated side by side, responding to each other’s handiwork.
Kieran had featured too in Donaghy’s story A Fish Out Of Water in his book A Pocketful Of Kindness, charting the day Kieran coaxed a former GP and school concert pianist, now 80 and sitting frostily at a distance in a care home, into joining him on the stool. You will find the full chapter on a Donaghy Facebook post.
“He is Quirky with a capital Q but with a heart of gold,” wrote Donaghy on Page 185. “In a world of horses for courses, many don’t fit him. Social situations…he can just get up and wander off. He is more gas or liquid than a solid. He sees life differently…
Kieran White, in 2020, holding a copy of Ian Donaghy’s book A Pocketful Of Kindness, open at the chapter entitled A Fish Out Of Water that charted Kieran’s nursing-home encounter with a former school concert pianist
“But behind all the quirks and eccentricities is a phenomenal musician with a kind heart,” Donaghy continued. “Kieran started calling for people to call out their favourite songs as he took on the role of dexterous jukebox. There was nothing he couldn’t play. Even if he had never heard something before.
“He would ask, ‘Sing it to me’, and within a few seconds he could play it. If he can hear it, he can play it. A mixture of a natural gift and hours of toil with the lid up.”
Fellow York composer Steve Crowther, administrator of York Late Music, has posted: “I have known Kieran for 30+ years. He was a genuinely remarkable musician and composer. And he possessed very little ego, a rare quality these days.
“I remember bumping into him in the city centre. We chatted about stuff. He was working on some silent movie project. Related to that, I think, was the idea of a fugue, which he then went on to improvise. Who the hell improvises a fugue? ‘Something like this…’ off he went, ‘no that’s not right…like this.”
Steve continued: “It was a bl**dy remarkable experience. The result was like Bach via Blues on speed. He was a constant: busking, singing & performing in pubs, always good for a catch-up and chat. But not any more. I will miss him.”
Originally from Colchester, Essex, where Kieran attended Colchester Royal Grammar School, he studied at the University of York. He would go on to busk prodigiously in the city, run White Rose Opera, play solo in pubs, restaurants and care homes, at weddings and with function bands too, as well as accompanying theatrical productions and being a piano teacher and tutor at York St John University.
Ultra-bright, knowledgeable, unconventional and witty, he was a dab hand at chess too, as well as displaying his trademark ability to play anything on the keys by ear.
On February 11, he had posted on Facebook of his health “deteriorating rapidly in the last year”, leading to Kieran “giving up playing piano as a result of ‘Trigger thumb’ and uncontrollable hand shaking”. Tests had revealed those tests were “purely down to stress. Thank God,” he wrote, but he revealed he had not been able to play, compose or even teach for almost a year and a half.
Kieran’s post went on to quote in full his interview with CharlesHutchPress, published on January 23 2020 under the headline “Pianist Kieran White to ‘break the silents’ at Helmsley Arts Centre screening of Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill, Jr”.
Kieran White, pencil illustration by Ian Donaghy, from A Pocketful Of Kindness, 2020
Here it is again, to add CharlesHutchPress’s voice to myriad recollections of Kieran’s talent for conjuring magic from the ivories.
ACCOMPANIED by Kieran White’s expressive, playful, gag-driven piano score, the Stoneface silent classic Steamboat Bill, Jr, will be shown “as it was originally intended to be seen in an authentic re-creation of the early cinema experience in the picture houses of the 1920s”.
Let Kieran make his case for why someone would want to see a black-and white, silent 1928 Buster Keaton film in 2020, the age of endless reheated Disney classics and myriad Marvel movies.
“We live in an instant world. A world governed by consumerism and technology. What we want, we can get just by clicking a mouse. We have forgotten how to slow down. How to breathe,” he says.
“But Buster takes us back to a time when time itself was a different thing entirely. A time when moments were savoured, rather than squandered.”
From past experience of his Breaking The Silents shows, White anticipates a largely middle-aged and older audience, but he believes Keaton’s comedic elan should appeal to “anyone with a love of history, a nostalgia for days of yore and an unfettered imagination”.
“Breaking The Silents offers a wonderful evening for all the family,” he says. “A lot of belly laughs. An appreciation of Buster’s incredible athleticism and craftmanship but, most of all, a reawakening of that state of wonderment that children have but never know they have.”
The relentless pace of Keaton’s comedy on screen leaves no gap, no rest, no breath, in White’s score, but still he finds room for quickfire references to the Steptoe And Son theme music, Porridge and The Barber Of Seville.
“The joy of Steamboat Bill, Jr is the raw energy,” says Kieran. “You know that if the stunts went wrong there would be no take two.”
White’s piano has accompanied screenings of Keaton’s 1927 film The General at locations as diverse as Helmsley Arts Centre, the Yorkshire Museum of Farming at Murton Park and City Screen, Fairfax House and the Joseph Rowntree Theatre in York.
Last September [2019], he presented a Breaking The Silents double bill of The General in the afternoon and Steamboat Bill, Jr in the evening at the JoRo. White’s labours of love had necessitated 11 days of writing for The General, a little longer for Steamboat Bill, Jr, drawing on his love of both Keaton’s comic craft and the piano.
“I was very inspired by my grandfather,” he says, explaining why piano was his instrument of choice. “He was a superb pianist and made the most complex music sound effortless.
“Ever since a very early age, I’ve been fascinated by puzzles too, particularly chess. Watching Pop play was like sitting inside a gigantic engine, seeing gears mesh, listening to the sound of tiny hammers. Music chose me!”
Where next might Breaking The Silents venture? “I think what I do is unique. Ultimately, I’d love to perform all over the world,” says Kieran.
In the meantime, here is a recommendation from York filmmaker Mark Herman, director of Brassed Off and Little Voice, to head to Helmsley Arts Centre on February 1 for the Keaton and White double act.
“Kieran White’s score and his live accompaniment raises an already almost perfect film to fresh heights,” he said after seeing The General. “It’s a shame that Buster Keaton never knew that his flawless performance could actually be enhanced.”
Rest in peace, Kieran Michael White, December 10 1961 – February 19 2025.
The arrangements for Kieran White’s funeral are yet to be announced.
