Brendan Kavanagh

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Brendan Kavanagh
Kavanagh in 2021
Background information
Also known as	Dr K
Born	October 1967 (1967-10) (age 57) London, England
Genres	Boogie-woogie classical music blues jazz rock and roll Irish traditional music
Occupations	Pianist piano teacher
Instruments	Piano piano accordion
YouTube information
Channel	Brendan Kavanagh
Years active	2012–present
Genre	Music
Subscribers	2.49 million [1] (February 2024)
Total views	1.36 billion[1] (February 2024)
Creator Awards 100,000 subscribers 1,000,000 subscribers

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]

Kavanagh attended St Aloysius' College, in Highgate from 1978 onwards.^[6][7] 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.^[8]

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]

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]

On 19 January 2024, Dr K uploaded to his YouTube channel a copy of his live stream, which was filmed from the station concourse. Since then it has achieved over 10 million views. The upload shows Dr K performing on the donated Elton John upright piano within St Pancras railway station. It was followed by a lively interaction with a Chinese group, some wearing colourful costumes and holding Chinese flags.^[16] The group asked Dr K not to 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". During their exchanges, Dr K referred to both "Communist China" and "Communist flags", resulting in the man accusing Dr K of racism.^[17][18][19]

During a conversation with a woman from the same group, Dr K pointed towards at the small Chinese flag she was holding and reached for it,^[16][20] to which the same man from before started repeatedly screaming, "Why are you touching her?" and "Stop touching her!" Dr K recoiled back and responded he'd not touched the woman but the small flag she was holding.^[21] As 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 was then heard saying "you can't say that" in relation to his "we're not in China" comment. Dr K defended his actions by citing his rights of 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 left the piano area, for a second time, to speak again to the same group of Chinese who had initially complained. The video footage doesn't show the officer when she returned to speak to Dr K.^[19]

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 then 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, for removal from his YouTube channel. He urged viewers to download the video in case it was permanently removed from his channel.^[22][23][24]

Two weeks later, Dr K screened an email he quoted as originating from YouTube's legal team.^[25] 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.^[26] The YouTube request ostensibly arose following a handful of alleged privacy infringement complaints.^[27]

Professor of Politics Eric Kaufmann from the University of Buckingham, who was interviewed by a staff reporter from TalkTV, criticised the Chinese group for attempting to transplant their homeland authority and Chinese Communist Party values into Britain.^[28]

• BBC Radio London Dr K interview, "The Jo Good Show", 9 August 2019 on Facebook