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]
In the late 1980s, Kavanagh studied classical piano with professor Nelly Ben-Or MBE,[9] who helped him complete his Grade 8 theory and practical requirements. He credits his success today as an improvisational classical/boogie-woogie pianist to her support and encouragement of his improvisational style.[10]:01:28 His boogie-woogie mentor is London pianist Hammy Howell (d. 1999) who gave a young Kavanagh three free music lessons to encourage his enthusiasm.[10]
Online presence and open public venue performances
In 2007, Kavanagh founded Dr K Media Limited, moving his focus towards online teaching, selling, performing and promoting piano music, with a strong emphasis on the boogie-woogie style. With the rising popularity of smartphones allowing virtually anyone to capture, edit and disseminate musical performances, he began performing in open public venues and uploading his work to streaming platforms.[3]
He regularly performs as Dr K wearing his signature dark hoodie and shades, or wears a uniform as a disguise. He performs to the public passing-by; typically on public pianos at railway stations, airports and many other open public venues, mainly in London. His impromptu performances weave together popular classical, boogie-woogie, Irish themes and are captured and uploaded to his Facebook page[11] (with 500 thousand followers) and to his YouTube channel, where he has over 2.49 million subscribers.[1][12]
In December 2023 he was interviewed on TalkTV for The James Whale Show[6][13] and claims to have earned a seven-figure sum that year, from his streaming activities. Kavanagh broadcasts some of his performances directly, via live streaming.[14][5][15]
St. Pancras Station piano dispute
On 19 January 2024, Dr K uploaded to his YouTube channel a copy of his live stream, which was filmed at an upright piano donated by Elton John on the concourse at St Pancras railway station. Since then it has achieved over 10million views. The upload shows Dr K playing the piano, followed by a contentious interaction with a Chinese group (which included Christine Lee),[16] some wearing colourful costumes and holding small Chinese flags.[17] The group insisted Dr K not record or publish their images or voices, expressing their desire to protect their image rights because they were there on behalf of "Chinese TV". Dr K explained to them that filming in a public place is legal in Britain. A man from the group said they loved Dr K's music but you "cannot share our images online" and we "will put a legal action into it". Dr K told him "we're in public" and "we're not in Communist China", at which point the man accused Dr K of racism.[18][19][20]
During a conversation with a woman from the same group, Dr K pointed towards the small Chinese flag she was holding and reached for it,[17][21] whereupon the Chinese man repeatedly shouted, "Why are you touching her?" and "Stop touching her!" Dr K recoiled and said he'd not touched the woman but the small flag she was holding.[22] When two uniformed British Transport Police officers arrived, one of them ordered Dr K to stop recording. A female officer told Dr K that, "because there’s money being made, and they work for a company", the Chinese group had requested the video be deleted. Dr K responded that she was acting like “private security” for the Chinese, an accusation she denied. She then told Dr K he couldn't say "we're not in China". Dr K cited his right to free speech, adding that he had not caused any trouble and had an implied right to film in a public place. The female police officer spoke to the Chinese group, but the video does not show any ensuing interactions.[20]
Following the incident, Kavanagh was interviewed by the media on the topic of the free-speech issues that he had raised. He joined journalist Mike Graham in his studio and appeared as a guest on Piers Morgan Uncensored on a subsequent evening. Both programmes were aired on TalkTV. Kavanagh told Morgan that his video clip already had "two strikes" against it and might be removed from his YouTube channel. He urged viewers to download the video in case it was permanently removed.[23][24][25]
Two weeks later, Dr K screened an email he quoted as originating from YouTube's legal team.[26] It appeared to request that he blur out the faces of some of the subjects shown on his video, citing YouTube's current privacy policy regarding the upload of videos that identify people without their consent.[27] The YouTube request ostensibly arose following a handful of alleged privacy infringement complaints.[28]
In January 2025, Dr K's video of the incident was taken down by YouTube due to a "privacy complaint".[30] In response he uploaded the footage to a new channel called The Pianogate Channel and called for subscriptions there.[31]
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