Brendan Kavanagh, also known as “Dr K”, is an Irish contemporary British pianist and piano teacher with over 1.5 million YouTube subscribers. Specializes in playing and promoting boogie-woogie, almost exclusively improvised, often combined with jazz, blues, rock and roll and traditional Irish musical themes. He regularly performs in open areas at public pianos, sometimes in four hands with passers-by or friends. He also plays the accordion, with an emphasis on traditional Irish melodies. In 2007, Brendan Kavanaugh founded Dr. K Media Limited, a multi-platform interactive piano education in the boogie, blues and rock and roll genres, and has shifted its focus to online training, sales, performance and promotion of piano music with a strong focus on boogie-woogie music.
Currently performing as Dr. K, often in his trademark dark hoodie and black glasses, sometimes in a worker’s, police or security uniform, playing incognito to astonished bystanders at public pianos at train stations, airports and other open public places, mostly around London. Sometimes he plays pranks on passers-by or already playing the piano, pretending to be a beginner, asking where the middle C is on the keyboard, trying to clumsily play a couple of notes, and then masterfully improvising, which achieves a comic effect. He is also known for ignoring the question “what’s your name?”, responding with the question “do you know boogie-woogie?”, giving rise to peculiar memes.