This is the first installment in our new blog series, "Mewses." Here on the Harmonia website, we'll meet those who eat with, sleep with, and perhaps occasionally lick the faces of some of today's busiest early music performers. We mean their pets, of course!
From Gwyn Roberts, co-director of Tempesta di Mare:
"My husband, lutenist Richard Stone, and I have two Siamese cats. Their names are Wooster and Dahlia, after Bertie Wooster and his good egg of an Aunt Dahlia, from the P.G. Wodehouse books (the Jeeves and Wooster series). They are just like the characters that they are named for: privileged, good-hearted nincompoops, with not a worry in the world and a taste for sloth and mischief. The first picture here is of the two of them invading my instrument cabinet when I had left it open for just a moment. Wooster (now 3 years old) is on the top shelf, and Dahlia (age 14) is on the shelf below him. Wooster is totally terrible, and Dahlia is enjoying (suffering) a second youth as she runs to keep up with his mischief.
They mostly ignore our music-making. When we are rehearsing with colleagues in the living room, they run their own agenda, as depicted in the next four photos (Wooster up on the air conditioner observing Emlyn Ngai as he warms up some Bach; Wooster nonplussed by a fleet of lute and guitar cases; Dahlia and Wooster (left to right) hanging out in the stacked chairs beside a music stand, as we wait for the ensemble to arrive; Team Cat (both of them, with Dahlia on the left) lounging on tenor Aaron Sheehan on our couch while we're all on break, etc.  The last two photos are of the Cattle (plural of cat, of course) snuggling on my desk, which they do all the time, and of Wooster on the floor of my teaching/practice studio, surrounded by file boxes of music, music stands and reference materials.
There are several times when Team Cat interacts directly with our human musical activities:
• When I am teaching recorder or flute in my studio, the cats usually just observe or snooze on a lap. Dahlia snores. But there are a couple of students who inspire the cats to sing along. They are siamese, so this is not a subtle event. It's always the same students. No idea why.
• Our teenage cat-daughter, Dahlia, likes to observe when Richard is teaching lute lessons and comment with an occasional quack or squawk from her perch on a tall stool in the corner
• My practicing any instrument is cause for Wooster to climb on my lap and go all smooshy at me (purring, snuzzling, etc.). But when I practice sopranino recorder, he wants to KILL it, like a bird. Our former boy-cat, Hobbes, did the same thing. I had to lock him out when practicing small recorders because he thought they might be good snacks. He would hurl himself against the door, trying to get in so that he could Get the bird.
Also, because I am Armenian, the cats have Armenian names. Dahlia is Dahlia Bug Chopslickian and Wooster is Wooster Kartoonian. Our former boy Hobbes was Hobbes Kaboinkian. Gotta keep that Armenian -ian thing going!"
Are you an early music professional whose pet would like to be featured on our website? Contact Elizabeth Clark.
