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Artsy Evolution

Artsy Evolution

20091025_cat_piano_v10_iphone_miscI am not the most tech-dependent person around.  Music geekiness, I get, but wired stuff?  Not so much.

I am a trained soprano, you see, only one step down from cats on the “diva potential” scale.  (Notice I said potential – I’ve known enough cats along the way to keep me in my place.)  I can wax poetic about twentieth century choral art music, but still resist some twentieth century doodads – nevermind twenty-first century hyperconnectivity.  I got my first cell phone years after my friends did, didn’t feel the need for cable television until I developed a fanaticism for the cable-only Tour de France, and am one of about 3 Americans that do not have a Facebook page.  Call me old-fashioned.

This is not actually the Tour de France.  They wear helmets nowadays.
This is not actually the Tour de France. They wear helmets nowadays.

But I have come to find that some developments in recent years are absolutely, positively indispensable.  Take, for instance, the aforementioned cell phone.  I was late to the game, but now have been without a land line for ages, and phones with cords seem quaint and quite frankly, cumbersome.  As a music teacher, I use laptop recording software regularly to transform my classroom into a recording studio.  And le Tour?  I now prefer to watch it streaming online from overseas TV outlets  – preferably in the local language.  Somehow cycling is even more excitante when I can’t understand a word the commentators are saying.

But without a doubt, I think that YouTube is one of the very best things ever.  Where else can I watch the unfortunately extinct Whose Line Is It Anyway? and find the episodes that make me laugh so hard I cry?  Or recorder performances to impress even the most jaded third grader?  And don’t even get me started on the silly cat videos.  My nieces and I can watch those for hours.

Recently, I stumbled upon a cat video of an entirely different kind and have yet to find the words to articulate its magic.  Have you met Nora?  She’s a supercute tabby with a penchant for the piano and gets her kicks playing solos, duets, and “helping” her person’s students in lessons.  Well, Nora caught the eye – or rather, ear – of Lithuanian conductor, composer, and artist Mindaugas Piečaitis, who found her as fascinating as the rest of us.  He also heard a bit more – a sense of cadence, harmony, and spare sensibilities that might earn the respect of a fellow (and iconic) Baltic state composer.

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Nora the Piano Cat

Maestro Piečaitis didn’t just say, “wow” the way most of the rest of the world did, though.  After conferring with Nora’s people, he embarked on a ground-breaking (and as far as I can tell, truly one-of-a-kind) collaborative compositional project: Catcerto.

This is no cutesy kitty banging on the piano, or semi-cracked artiste indulging in senseless performance art.  This is the real deal.   And I can’t imagine how this could have come about without without the benefit of those social media tools that I ordinarily view with suspicion.  I wouldn’t call me a convert yet, but it seems the tide is turning.

So, in spite of my aversion to all things gadgety, boy am I glad that other people (and cats) are not.  Here’s a big shout out to Nora, the maestro, and the tech übergeeks of the world that love to play with computers and cameras and the intertubes.  You’ve paved the way to a whole new arena of appreciation in which we artsy geeks can revel.

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