LOS ANGELES — Nora the piano-playing cat is living the Hollywood life in Philadelphia.
Fresh from a Lithuanian concerto written just for her, the YouTube sensation gets fan mail by the bushel, has her own groupies and could be an addict if her owners ever forget to put the catnip away.
The 5-year-old tabby’s latest cyber splash was Lithuanian conductor Mindaugas Piecaitis’ first composition, featuring Nora’s solo video performance in what he called his CATcerto.
The performance with the Klaipeda Chamber Orchestra on June 5 has become a Web sensation at www.catcerto.com, with hits closing in on 1 million.
In all, nearly 20 million people have watched Nora play. She has made the television talk show circuit and has videos, two books, her own Web site, a blog, three calendars, mugs, greeting cards, T-shirts and posters under her belt.
Nora is owned by piano teacher Betsy Alexander, 53, and her artist-photographer husband Burnell Yow. They live in a house splashed with floor-to-ceiling color with five other cats: Gabby, Max, Rennie, Miro and Clara.
Alexander said Nora, a photogenic green-eyed shelter cat, has been a diva as long as she’s known her. In fact, the day they found each other, at a Cherry Hill, N.J., shelter, there was a sign on Nora’s cage that said “bossy.” She doesn’t like other cats.
Nora has an agent, her own photographer and an entourage. But she isn’t into bling (make that collars) and she doesn’t like riding in a car — even a limo — or a plane.
“She loves visitors. She is a very gracious performer and she feels indebted to her public,” Alexander said.
Nora doesn’t play just any piano, she plays a Yamaha C5 Disklavier — a Lamborghini of a piano, Alexander calls it.
Most of her performances come when someone else is playing the turn-of-the-century, ivory-keyed and restored Briggs piano next to the Yamaha.
“She plays in rhythm and on key,” said Alexander, who has been teaching piano, guitar, voice and composition since sixth grade. “She plays in the same area of the keyboard as the person on the other piano and when the student stops, she stops. More often than not, she is in the same octave as the student. Sometimes she plays loudly, softly, quickly, slowly.”
A music teacher in Japan wrote to say Nora had superb technique and she used Nora as an example to her students on how to strike the keys. Nora releases the key instead of pounding it, Alexander said.
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