Brendan Kavanagh (born October 1967[2][3]), also known as "Dr K" due to his PhD in English, is a British pianist and piano teacher of Irish descent. He specializes in playing and promoting the boogie-woogie genre, almost exclusively improvised, often combined with classical, jazz, blues, rock & roll, and traditional Irish music themes. He regularly performs in open venues on public pianos, sometimes in duet formats with musically inclined passers-by, friends or family. He also plays the piano accordion, with emphasis on traditional Irish tunes.[4][5]
Education
Kavanagh attended the Roman Catholic St Aloysius' College, in Highgate from 1978 onwards.[6][non-primary source needed] He went on to study and then graduate from Middlesex University with first class single honours BA in English. He then obtained his MA in Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at University College Dublin, followed by a PhD in English language and literature from University College Cork.[7]
Online presence and open public venue performances
In 2007, Kavanagh founded Dr. K Media Limited and changed his focus to online teaching, selling, performing and promoting piano music, with a strong emphasis on the boogie-woogie style. With the advent of smartphones which allow virtually anyone to capture and disseminate musical performances, he began performing in open public venues.[3]
He has performed as Dr. K, often wearing his signature dark hoodie and shades, or sometimes wearing a workman's uniform, playing incognito in front of often astonished passers-by on public pianos at railway stations, airports and other open public venues, mostly around London. His impromptu performances, often weaving together classical, boogie-woogie, Irish and popular themes, are captured and uploaded to his facebook page[8] (with 500k followers) and his YouTube channel, where he has over 2.24 million subscribers,[1] making him as of January 2024, the 1,136th most-subscribed channel.[9] Interviewed by James Whale in December 2023[6][non-primary source needed] he claimed to have earnt a seven figure sum from his channel activities that year. He broadcasts some of his performances directly, via live streaming.[10][5][11] One such YouTube stream in January 2024, had over 6.4m views, showing Dr.K interacting with British Transport Police and a group of Chinese people at St Pancras railway station,[12] interspersed with Dr. K playing the station piano, donated by Sir Elton John[13][14].[15][16] He was later interviewed by journalist Mike Graham on TalkTV on 22 January 2024 in relation to the video going viral.[17][18][19]
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