The Cat Community at the Cat Colloquium
September 27, 2024
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Nora the Piano Cat loves the Cat Colloquim in Chestown, Maryland.
Watch, sing, dance, and play with Nora The Piano Cat and friends in an exciting new musical animated series. Prepare to explore Nora’s world, filled with creativity, diverse musical genres, surprises, and captivating characters at every turn!
Join Nora’s fans in following the journey of this new series, and stay up-to-date for all the latest announcements, episode releases, and ways to get involved!
Born as a stray, Nora was forced to make her way through the streets and back alleys of Philadelphia with no family to love and support her amazing, creative mind. Despite being alone in the big city, Nora always found a way to make it and a song to sing while she did it.
As luck would have it, one day, while enjoying a particularly good piece of leftover food behind a local sandwich shop, Nora was mesmerized by the sounds emanating from a perfectly tuned piano nearby. Entranced, Nora was drawn to the sound, which lead her to the home of Betsy, an amazing artist and musician who is a lover of all cats.
After being taken in, Nora discovered that Betsy’s home was everything Nora had been looking for her entire life: an artistic oasis in the middle of the concrete jungle, filled with colorful art projects, amazing sculptures and, most of all, music!
At first, Nora loved watching Betsy play the piano and give piano lessons to local children, like her best student, and Nora’s biggest fan, Sam. However, after sitting out a few lessons, Nora could no longer be a spectator and had to try that piano for herself. The rest is history as Betsy not only adopted Nora and gave her a loving home, but also catapulted Nora to international fame as the world’s first piano playing cat!
Join Nora The Piano Cat on exciting adventures where music tells the story!
A stray cat most recently from the mean streets of Philadelphia, Nora has a big voice and even bigger dreams, as she transforms her love of piano music into worldwide fame by becoming an Internet superstar! Fiercely intelligent and big-hearted, Nora is a well-traveled cat who has studied Eastern philosophy and all the different types of music in the world with her adopted mom Betsy and is always up to help her friends and family, as long as it doesn’t interrupt her piano time! You see, Nora has always been musical as she used to sing her way through life when she was a stray and still sings her days away while living with Betsy and her new brother and sister kitties. Whenever Nora sings and plays music, it sounds like a full-blown musical extravaganza to her and the other cats, but to the humans, it sounds mostly like meowing and plinking on the piano. Even so, the humans in Nora’s life, and her Internet fans, love it just the same! Nora loves the attention that Betsy, Sam and the general public pay to her because of her performing because she is basically the P.T. Barnum of cats, ready to put on a show at a moment’s notice.
Truly a renaissance woman, Betsy is a painter, writer, musician, composer and just about everything else you can think of. If it’s creative, chances are Betsy can do it, but the only thing bigger than her creative spirit is her heart, which is always open for her beloved kitties. Betsy loves all living things, big and small, but her cats will always have a special place in her heart, and she would do anything for them, which they put to the test all the time. Luckily for them, Betsy is the most loving cat mom in the entire city and is always adding to her brood of furry buddies. Nora is the newest cat to join the household, but even though she’s new, she is no less loved by Betsy, who loves all of her cats the same, including Max, who can be a little smelly at times. Betsy’s love does not end at her cats, though, as she is also a wonderful piano teacher to many children in the city, including Sam.
Sam is Betsy’s star pupil and can often be found at her house getting piano lessons, when Nora doesn’t interrupt them, of course. Despite the fact that Sam is quite gifted on the piano, he struggles with confidence and self-doubt when he is away from his chosen instrument. He struggles in social situations and is also quick to lose faith when he tries something and doesn’t succeed at it right away. A lot of Sam’s feelings are due to him not having a lot of friends at school, as he’s new to the city and struggling to adapt to his new home, but Betsy and Nora are always there to help him and remind him what a wonderful, smart and talented kid he is. At the same time, Sam is always happy to pay Nora back for her help with lots of pets and treats, so their relationship is what is known as a win-win!
Nora’s best friend in the house, Rennie the cat is equally as artistic as Nora, but in a very different way. Whereas Nora loves music and singing, Rennie loves painting with his paws, sculpting clay, dancing and eating catnip. That last one isn’t really related to art, but he still loves it! While Nora is a deep thinker and everything she does has some meaning to it, Rennie is more flighty, preferring to live in the moment, leading Rennie to always be up for an adventure with Nora, whether it’s happening around the house or even out in the streets of the city! Unlike Nora, who takes to adventure like a furry Indiana Jones, Rennie is a bit more of a scaredy cat (pun intended), but his love for Nora overcomes his fear every time. While Nora is firmly Betsy’s cat, Rennie is really more of Burnell’s cat, his fur always stained with paint or covered in black dust from his latest charcoal drawings, but when it comes to putting on shows, Rennie is really more of a “behind-the-scenes” kind of cat, preferring to leave the performing to Nora and Clara.
The resident lazy bones, Max the cat loves to lay around, eat, sleep, eat, play with the occasional toy, eat… did I mention eat? Despite living in Betsy and Burnell’s colorful artist’s haven, Max isn’t interested in the arts at all, but he is supportive of Nora and Rennie’s artistic endeavors in his own way. As long as they don’t need anything from him, he is always happy to clap for their songs or tell them what a pretty picture they made. When they need him to pose for a picture or sing in a song, he is a very unwilling participant, but a participant nonetheless. Luckily for Nora and Rennie, Max is a good sport as long as you keep him fed. Where Max and his portly frame do come in handy, though, is when the group ventures out of the house on adventures, as it always helps to have a big cat with you to clear the way or scare away any troublemakers.
A beautiful, fluffy Southern Belle, Clara the cat is the debutante of the house, our resident Blanche DuBois. She is well mannered, proper and always very clean, so you will definitely not catch her going into any dumpsters with Nora, getting drenched in paint with Rennie or jumping into the stream of a fire hydrant on a hot summer day with Max. Clara’s idea of a perfect day is lounging in the front window on a sunny day and letting all the passersby admire her luxurious coat. While she may not be up for getting down and dirty, when it comes to putting on a musical performance, Clara is always front and center, ready for her moment in the spotlight, so she will feature prominently in many of our songs. Nora tries her best to get along with everyone, but if Nora had a “nemesis” in the house, it’s Clara, who is very jealous of the attention that Nora gets from Betsy, especially since Nora became famous on the Internet. Clara tries to undermine Nora every chance she gets, but no matter how hard she tries, Nora always seems to be one step ahead.
A true artist to his core, Burnell is Betsy’s husband and is mostly heard and not seen because he is always buried in his latest art project of the day. We can get a lot of comedy in the series about how Burnell doesn’t notice the utter chaos happening around him because he is so engrossed in his art. Even though Nora is very firmly Betsy’s cat, Nora and Burnell have bonded over their love of dumpster diving. Nora loves it for all the tasty snacks she can find, which remind her of her days as a stray and Burnell loves it because he never knows what treasures he’ll find for his art projects.
Nora the Piano Cat was a real-life, piano-playing, sassy stray cat who was adopted by Philadelphia musicians and artists Betsy Alexander and Burnell Yow. Nora gained international prominence after a YouTube video of her playing the piano went viral in 2007. Nora’s combined YouTube videos have garnered more than 40 million views.
Read our blog for exciting updates all centered around the enchanting musical world of Nora The Piano Cat!
Nora the Piano Cat loves the Cat Colloquim in Chestown, Maryland.