A Brilliant Idea: Concerto for Nora (the Cat) and Orchestra

Com­poser and Con­duc­tor Min­dau­gas Piecaitis in Lithua­nia had an idea. Why not build an orches­tral accom­pa­ni­ment around the now-famous YouTube video of Nora the Piano Cat? The result is a bril­liant, if some­times quirky piece of music that gen­tly and play­fully inter­acts with the cat video.

Despite the title ‘CATcerto’, this is actu­ally a sen­si­tive and at times con­tem­pla­tive piece, and shows just what a com­poser can do, how they can make some inter­est­ing com­po­si­tional choices in response to almost ran­dom events, and make sense of it all. As Igor Stravin­sky once said: “The more con­straints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self. And the arbi­trari­ness of the con­straint serves only to obtain pre­ci­sion of execution.”

We now live in an Internet-connected world, where dig­i­tal video, com­posers and cham­ber orches­tras can all some­how blend into some­thing that’s…well, Art. I’m all for it.

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By David Drucker | Filed in Music, Tech | July 20, 2009 6:17 pm

6 Comments

6 Comments to “A Brilliant Idea: Concerto for Nora (the Cat) and Orchestra”

  1. Avatarlaura
    Posted: Jul 20th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
    1

    I love this. I fully sup­port this kind of art form.
    And I will admit it that its kind of inspired me to do a lit­tle com­pos­ing of my own.

    Highly inge­nious.
    Its just what I needed to see.

    Thanks :)

  2. AvatarJoan Vermette
    Posted: Jul 20th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
    2

    That made my evening; thank you!
  3. AvatarDavid Drucker
    Posted: Jul 20th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
    3
    Author Comment

    You’re both wel­come. It cer­tainly made my day.
  4. AvatarJani Quay
    Posted: Jul 24th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
    4

    That is sim­ply bril­liant. So many ele­ments involved — cre­ative video edit­ing com­bined with com­po­si­tion. As a music teacher, I would love to use this as a lis­ten­ing piece to have stu­dents iden­tify the intro­duc­tion and restate­ment of themes.
  5. AvatarRonald Lee
    Posted: Jul 25th, 2009 at 12:21 am
    5

    Cool. I was wait­ing for the cat to start play­ing the piano, but gave up half way. Still, I like watch­ing videos of cats.
  6. AvatarGianni bainchi
    Posted: Sep 25th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
    6

    I love music,I love cats,I love you!!!
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