Some people are good enough to excel in both acting and music. Doña Oxford is one of those extraordinary individuals.
A video of Doña performing at the Riverfront Blues Festival in 2013 has garnered 12.8 million views on YouTube. In it, she plays boogie-woogie, a fun and lively genre. As the video starts, Doña asks the crowd if she can play for them, and their enthusiastic cheers give her the go-ahead.
She then promises to teach the crowd about boogie-woogie and starts playing with incredible skill and sass. Her head nods, body sways, and energetic movements add flair to her impressive keyboard performance. The crowd loves it.
During the song, Doña interacts with the audience, at one point playing with one hand and jokingly telling the bass player he can go home. She then adds her right hand back in and speeds up the tempo until her hands blur across the keys. The performance ends with a huge cheer from the audience.
Doña’s talent isn’t limited to music. Born on New York’s Upper West Side, she came into the world in a hurry—her mother gave birth in the backseat of a car in the hospital parking lot. Her father, a musician and priest, passed away when she was just 15 months old. Her mother, a cabaret singer, exposed Doña to various music genres, fostering her love for music.
Doña started public performances at seven and received classical training in piano. She also ventured into singing and acting, with a passion for musical theatre. At seventeen, she enrolled at the Tisch School of Arts in New York, where she performed at open mic nights and in regional and off-Broadway plays.
Today, Doña is a successful actress, musician, screenwriter, and composer, with an estimated net worth of 1.3 million dollars. After enjoying her boogie-woogie video, be sure to check out another one of her great performances at Witzend.