Bernie Katzman, a 71-Year-Old Pianist, Performs for 60,000 Users Daily on Twitch

By Ian Holubiak i.holubiak@classicalite.com | Feb 01, 2016 04:02 PM EST

It's not often that someone is compared to Bob Ross in terms of cult heroism, but for Twitch's affable old man piano player Bernie Katzman, the similarities are astounding. Racking up a nominal 137,000 subscribers and performing for roughly 60,000 users daily on the live interactive website, Mr. Katzman is quickly going viral for his improv piano skills.

He plays everything, from the cantina music heard in Star Wars to a high-kicking, Sinatra-imitating rendition of "New York" and has garnered such a large following that even Reddit users took notice.

And if you make it on Reddit, then you can make it anywhere.

Bernie lives in Florida but hails from New York City. A frequent YouTube poster, he has since branched out his performances to the platform Twitch, a site that is usually reserved for users playing video games in front of a live audience.

Making the switch in 2015 to appear on Twitch, his fanbase quickly exploded and he is now known as the friendly old guy ready to play everything (and we mean everything) thrown his way.

According to New York Magazine:

"He's unfailingly cheerful and gracious, and when he says he'll play all genres of music, he does mean all genres. If an affable senior citizen riffing on anime theme songs and music from the very weird cult-video-game hit Undertale isn't the best thing on the Internet right now, it's close. And does he Rickroll? Do you even have to ask?"

Friendly users have been taking to Bernie's channel and posting about it on Twitter. From dancing between genres much like he dances between his dueling pianos, Katzman has successfully located a heartstring in his broadcasts that he is able to pull in all of his adoring fans.

Well, he certainly has a new fan here as well.

Check out Katzman below and if you're feeling up to it, locate him on Twitch today.

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