Catcerto 2009

I would like to share with you a revelation, an inspiration…

We always admire animals that have a human behavior towards specific things and are capable to capture a piece of human culture because we all know it is not that easy for an animal to blend in human nature. For that reason we admire the animals that kind of comprehend pieces of us.

So now as I find Nora, a piano playing cat, I am impressed and deeply touched. But I am much more impressed by the spirit of the people who created Nora by trying to here her voice, by trying to capture that piece of time in which Nora is being very special. And we believe Nora as we believe in what these people are telling us. It is not certain Nora is creating art for we don’t know how Nora feels about her playing the piano. Art begins to exist in the moment the appreciation of Nora starts.

So what we have here is the concept that art is not solely a human terrain and including Nora in a concert presents the creative as an interspecies quality and enriches us in a very powerful way. Because Nora is being creative and the humans do not hesitate to acknowledge it. It doesn’t matter if Nora understands her creativeness, we do and this is what’s important.

So giving so much attention to Nora and including her in a concert as a solo player is a recognition of uniqueness and a cultural reach beyond all that is conventional. Because Nora is unconventional. Nora is reaching her paws towards humanity and we can’t resist to enjoy it.

Pay attention, by the way that I keep calling this cat “Nora” all the time instead of saying “the cat Nora”. Quite interesting because it is not the cat Nora I am talking about, but it is Nora who is a cat I am speaking of.

It is amazing how a human composer shares his composition with Nora the cat. He follows Nora’s ideas, he enriches the feeling, composes trough listening and trough listening we trust his judgment that all this is what it is – unique.

It is as well the multilinguistic project we enjoy. The multimedia is a very powerful tool in art and it has been used very carefully and thoughtfully in the Catcerto. We can try to segment the piece buy pointing some contrasts used here.

As a start we can say that the classical music has been conventionally presented by a system of visual signs like – seriousness, official clothing, elevated emotions triggered by the presence of the orchestra, probably the composer himself – all that pointing to a highly elevated art no one would dare to call unserious in any way. You go to a concert, you enter the hall and there is this total silence, everyone is expecting the MUSIC to start. At the same time lets look at the visual system of the cat playing the piano. Cats are one of the sweetest species in the world. They are playful, child like, they can look pretty innocent, and quite unserious as they start and stop and lie down, and agin begin to play – a very free sign system when you try to compare it with classical music performance. So here we have a beautiful visual linguistic contrast - the cat with it’s free behavior opposed to the concert musicians who are very strict in what they are doing. Beautiful contrast!

Then again in the visual part of the performance – the musicians are many, are people and there is this one cat Nora presenting the cat species and maybe presenting the whole animal kingdom – strong effect again. There is more – the cat has been always considered as an elegant creature, we admire cats for their looks very much. We admire the elegance of the musicians performing as well but this is a different kind of elegance – so here you have again a contrast but this time there is this both side elegance standing there to unite the symbols. So you see the exotic idea to place a cat in to a concert hall is getting more and more interesting.

I am thinking now of the rich lady who is going to a concert with a fur collar of a wild cat listening to a concert where the main performer is a cat. Wow… Must be a very complicated situation.

And if we try to continue with the former line of thoughts there is the sound in the Catcerto which is again build in a wonderful line of contrast and harmony. There is this big number of instruments introducing us to the solo of Nora, and the instruments go around the piano solo enriching it, protecting it from loosing the way, and building such a solid base that the single notes start to dance in a wonderful music.

Now I would like to stop here and invite you to see this amazing piece of art by visiting the Catcerto website – http://www.catcerto.com/ There you could watch the whole piece of the concert.