Английская Википедия:Brendan Kavanagh

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Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Pp-protected Шаблон:For Шаблон:Primary sources Шаблон:Use dmy dates Шаблон:Infobox musical artist Brendan Kavanagh (born October 1967), 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.

Education

Kavanagh attended St Aloysius' College, in Highgate from 1978 onwards. 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.

In the late 1980s, Kavanagh studied classical piano with professor Nelly Ben-Or MBE, 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.Шаблон:Rp His boogie-woogie mentor is London pianist Hammy Howell (d.1999) who gave a young Kavanagh three free music lessons to encourage his enthusiasm.

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.

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 (with 500k followers) and to his YouTube channel, where he has over 2.4 million subscribers, making him as of January 2024, the 1,136th most-subscribed channel.

In December 2023 he was interviewed on TalkTV for The James Whale Show and claims to have earnt a seven-figure sum that year, from his streaming activities. Kavanagh broadcasts some of his performances directly, via live streaming.

St. Pancras Station piano dispute

Since 20 January 2024, a copy of an uploaded Dr. K YouTube live stream has achieved over 10 million views. The video shows Dr. K playing the St Pancras railway station piano in London and having an (initially cordial) interaction with a group of Chinese citizens in red scarfs holding Chinese flags and later two uniformed British Transport Police officers. The group asked Dr. K not to record or publish their images or voices. They expressed concerns about protecting their image rights for "Chinese TV". Dr. K explained that filming in public is legal in Britain. When he referred to the flags as "Communist flags", the group accused him of racism. When he gestured toward a flag held by a woman he was addressing, her male companion screamed aggressively "Why are you touching her? Stop touching her!" causing Dr. K to recoil in surprise. The man continued to repeat "Do not touch her!" and "You are not the same age!" while Dr K. attempted to say that he did not touch her but rather the flag. Police were called by the group. One of the officers ordered Dr.K to stop filming the conversation and was heard saying "you can't say that" in relation to his "we're not in China" comment. He cited his rights of free speech and that he had not caused any trouble and he had an implied right to film in a public place. The female police officer left the piano playing area, for a second time, to speak to the group who had initially complained, the video footage doesn't show that officer returning to Dr. K.

World-wide interest in the video, quickly led to Dr. K being interviewed by mainstream media on the topic of the free-speech issues that he had raised. He joined journalist Mike Graham in the studio and then as a guest on Piers Morgan Uncensored on a subsequent evening. Both programmes were on TalkTV. Dr. K 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. On 2 February 2024, Dr K screened an email he quoted as originating from YouTube's legal support team. It appears to request that he blur out the faces of some of the subjects within his video, on the grounds of privacy. The request followed a handful of alleged privacy infringement complaints.

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

External links

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