With more than 1.5 million YouTube subscribers, Brendan Kavanagh, better known as “Dr. K,” is an Irish modern British pianist and piano instructor.
He focuses on performing and promoting boogie-woogie, which is virtually always improvised and frequently mixed with jazz, blues, rock, and roll, as well as traditional Irish musical elements. He frequently plays in public spaces at pianos, sometimes in four hands with onlookers or friends.
Additionally, he plays the accordion, focusing on traditional Irish tunes. In 2007, Brendan Kavanaugh established Dr. K Media Limited, a multi-platform interactive piano teaching company with a heavy emphasis on boogie-woogie music. Since then, the company’s focus has shifted to online training, selling, performance, and promotion of piano music.
Currently playing secretly at public pianos in railway stations, airports, and other open public spaces, especially in London, as Dr. K, typically with his signature dark hoodie and black spectacles, but also occasionally in a worker’s, police, or security outfit.
Sometimes he pulls practical jokes on people walking by or playing the piano by acting like a novice, asking where the middle C is on the keyboard, clumsily trying to play a few notes, and then deftly improvising to create a comedic impact.
A strange meme was created as a result of him skipping the query “What’s your name?” and instead asking, “Do you know boogie-woogie?”
Check out the video below!