Patricia Kavanagh studied classical accordion with her father Patrick Kavanagh and piano with Dame Ruth Railton in Dublin before completing her post-graduate performance studies with Professor Vitalij Margulis and Professor Boris Lvov in Germany.
In accordion, she represented Ireland in the Coupe Mondiale in 1976, aged 13, the youngest competitor ever to participate. In the same year she was an inaugural recipient of the Fitzwilton Trust Scholarships and awarded a scholarship from the Michael Collins Foundation. By the age of 18 she had completed the LRAM Teachers Diploma and ARCM and LTCL Performers Diplomas. She has since gone on to give many solo and chamber music recitals in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Germany and Taiwan.
From 1988-1992 she was Associate Professor of Piano at the National Academy of Liberal Arts and Soochow University, Taiwan.
and she has been an international jury member for a number of classical accordion competitions in St. Petersburg.
Her piano students have been first prize-winners at Dublin’s Feis Ceoil and other national competitions and her accordion students’ successes include First Prize at the RTÉ Musician of the Future and the Contemporary Irish Music Cup at the Dublin’s Feis Ceoil.
Patricia Kavanagh has lectured in both piano and classical accordion at the RIAM since 1993. From 1995 to 2005 she was Head of Keyboard Studies at the RIAM and was Chair of the Academy’s academic council, the Board of Studies from 2002-2005