Matt Johnson
Pianist ~ Composer
Teacher
COMPANY HISTORY
ISNI (Dolce & Nuit Productions) 0000 0004 7681 6022
Dolce & Nuit Productions (DNP) began in 1985 as a small independent recording, publishing, performance and booking company to promote Matt's original music.
NAME
The company’s name was derived from Matt's two cats:
~ his white cat, Dolce (pronounced “Dole-chA”—Italian for “sweetly”) and
~ his black cat, Nuit (pronounced “Nwee”—French for “night”)
Nuit was featured on the cover of A Quiet Moment
~ Matt's first album...eventually released in CD format.
LOGO
The company logo is a representation of both cats sitting in a window.
In the original picture (below right), the cats were sitting reversed.
Their names flowed better as "Dolce & Nuit Productions"
so the colors of the cats where switched to make the logo work.
Unfortunately, both pets are now in kitty cat heaven.
The text size in the original logo (above left) proved to be too small and unclear when printed, so the logo was redesigned several years later into it's current version.
Having been "signed" with a BMG distributed record label at one time,
Matt now considers himself a "confirmed independent artist"and
will continue to use Dolce & Nuit Productions to promote his music.
ARTICLE
The following article was featured in Cat Fancy magazine in 1986 and
highlights Nuit being on the cover of my first album.
FROM POUND TO POSING
Being cat lovers and enjoying Cat Fancy magazine, we thought other cat lovers might enjoy reading about our youngest cat, Nuit. My wife and I acquired our first cat the summer we were married in 1983. Being a musician, I named her Dolce, which is also a musical term and means "sweet" in Italian. Dolce rarely lived up to her name, and being half siamese, no one blamed her. When we moved to Boston a year later, we wanted a companion for Dolce. Since she was all white, we thought it appropriate to get an all black cat. As a pianist, the concept of a black and a white cat was certainly catchy!
We decided to go to a local shelter seeking a black kitten. After a disappointing search through the kennel, not one completely black kitten was discovered. When we asked the attendant if they ever received any black kittens, she informed us they did have one. To our amazement, she pulled a tiny black ball of fur from the shadowy back of a cage. We had found the next addition to our family and she was named "Nuit" - French for "night."
Dolce took to the new addition good-naturedly and Nuit grew into a beautiful, sleek cat. Last Fall, I was looking for ideas for the album cover for my new record, A Quiet Moment and my wife suggested using both cats on top of a piano. The photo would be in black and white, showing a black and a white cat having a "quiet moment" on a black grand piano. Great! However, the idea did not go over well with our furry feline friends. After spending several frustrating hours and countless rolls of film trying to get the cats to pose on the piano with the hopes of capturing the essence of the theme, we could only hope that at least one of the pictures would be usable.
We were surprised, and relieved, to find a suitable picture of Nuit, laying across the piano on some of my manuscripts. This picture captured the mood perfectly...it was as if she were born to model!
Nuit only allowed us two pictures of her atop the piano…and that with considerable bribing. Dolce had been our best bet since she is a natural ham for the camera, anyway. Even though we weren't able to get both cats on the piano together, the photo of Nuit so expressed the mood of the solo piano album's theme "a quiet moment" that she won out over Dolce. To insure that Dolce's feelings weren't hurt and she be represented properly, I named my recording company after both cats, Dolce & Nuit Productions. The logo for the company is a pair of cats, one white and one black, which was traced from a picture we have of both cats sitting in the window. Everyone who has purchased an album from me, has been intrigued that the cat on the cover is really my cat. Many before unknown cat lovers have expressed enthusiasm for the album cover picturing Nuit and the company's logo.
So our little Nuit went from the pound to posing as a model on my album. We've assured Dolce that she will appear on the next album. But for now, both cats are gaining wider recognition through my business and solo piano album.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
