Feline Composer "Meows Her Last"

A story in today's Times tells the charming tale of Ketzel (which means "cat" in Yiddish), a black and white cat who, believe it or not, won a prize for piano composition and was featured in a book, "The World of Women in Classical Music". Ketzel, 19, who died last week in Manhattan, was a resident of the Upper West Side.


It seems that Ketzel's owner was at one time chairman of the composition department at the Peabody Conservatory, and while he was playing piano one morning, Ketzel happened to jump on the keyboard...and the rest is history. Or at least resulted in Ketzel's composition titled, "Piece for Piano, Four Paws", being awarded special mention by the Paris New Music Review and having its debut at Peabody. It was later performed in Europe and heard on public radio.


Read this heartwarming article here: cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/a-musically-inclined-feline-mews-her-last/?scp=2&sq=James%20Barron&st=cse. We love that the online version of the article allows you to listen to the composition in its one minute entirety.


Here's our cat, Bella, choosing to sleep rather than work toward her shot at immortality.

Have any of your cats (or dogs for that matter) composed music or otherwise received formal acknowledgment for creating art? We'd love to know!

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