I composed TWENTY COVIDITTIES between July 31st and Oct. 19th, 2020 amidst suffocating smoke, impending conflagrations, destructive riots, politico-ideological turmoil, all whilst in the throes of a pernicious global pandemic. These are intended to evoke various events that occurred during this tumultuous time period, especially from the perspective of one residing in Portland, Oregon (an acknowledged epicenter of civil unrest).

TWENTY COVIDITTIES Op. 116 by GARY LLOYD NOLAND

COVOID from COVIDITTIES Op. 116, No. 1 portrays the Silent Assailant wreaking havoc everywhence and everywhither whilst remaining invisible to its victims, seemingly operating in a vacuum.
To read more about composer Gary Lloyd Noland, please visit his website at: https://composergarynoland.godaddysites.com/

COVOID from TWENTY COVIDITTIES Op. 116, No. 1

QUARANTENACIOUSNESS is about maintaining a façade of unruffled composure and sanity during this global meltdown.
To learn more about composer Gary Lloyd Noland, go to his website at:https://composergarynoland.godaddysites.com/

QUARANTENACIOUSNESS from 20 COVIDITTIES, Op. 116, No. 2

Composer Gary Lloyd Noland performs his COVIDÉCADENSE for piano, Op. 116, No. 5 (August 12th, 2020).  For more information on Gary Lloyd Noland, go to his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

COVIDÉCADENSE for piano, Op. 116, No. 5 (Aug. 12, 2020)

For more information on composer Gary Lloyd Noland, go to his website at: https://composergarynoland.godaddysites.com/

COTTAGE FEVER from 20 COVIDITTIES, Op. 116, No. 3 (Aug. 18, 2020)

DESECRATION from 20 COVIDITTIES, Op. 116, No. 4  (Aug.20, 2020)

Having attended a recital of musical portraits by Virgil Thomson in Boston back in the 1980s (with the composer present, whom I briefly met), I have decided to embark upon a similar pilgrimage.This piece is a delicately sculpted musical portrait of playwright David Hirson, composed and performed by Gary Lloyd Noland (December 19th, 2020). David Hirson is best known for his award-winning Broadway comedies, La Bête and Wrong Mountain. This is the second in a series of musical portraits by the composer. The first portrait, completed earlier this month (December, 2020) is of novelist, essayist and poet Alexander Theroux, which can be heard here: https://soundcloud.com/gary-noland/portrait-of-novelist-essayist-poet-alexander-theroux-for-piano

MUSICAL PORTRAIT OF PLAYWRIGHT DAVID HIRSON

Resides in Portland, Oregon. Grew up in Berkeley, CA. Born in Seattle.  PhD, Harvard. “Gary Noland is one of the great composers of the 21st century.”—JACK RUMMEL, KGNU 88.5 FM, Boulder CO, “...iconoclastic, stylistic potpourri standards of giddy humor, no holds barred soup to nuts and high spirits.”—ROBERT LEVIN, pianist, musicologist, composer, "...a fleet-fingered, ebullient performer ... bright, witty and engaging.”—CHRISTIAN CAREY, SPLENDID MAGAZINE, “...distinctive, inventive ... subversive ... You can hardly be indifferent to Noland’s music and so I would urge you to try it.” —ROGER BLACKBURN, MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL, “...set in a dizzying harmonic language that loops uncontrollably through a wide-ranging gamut of possible and impossible tonalities ... The general effect is like watching wet paintings of 19th Century musical memorabilia drip into frazzled 21st Century oblivion...” —ALLEN GIMBEL, AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE, “Mr. Noland writes as a ‘time traveler’ in styles long abandoned by most composers as well as styles so new as to not have been imagined but by him. This he accomplishes naturally, convincingly, with originality and true passion. His command of all musical languages and his ability to traverse musical time is nothing less than remarkable. Listen!”—DONALD MARTINO, Pulitzer Prize winning composer, “...mind-bending spiraling of focus which is truly breathtaking ... spectacular...”—CHARLES AMIRKHANIAN, composer, sound poet & radio producer, “I'm amazed at your harmonic skill. Haven't seen or heard anything like it from any one else—except yours truly—certainly not from your generation. It falls somewhere between Strauss and Mahler. Especially like how you are able to slip in and out from the tonal to the atonal—or near atonal...”—GEORGE ROCHBERG, American composer, Pulitzer Prize finalist, “...court jester to the classical establishment...”—PAYTON MACDONALD, AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE, “...florid and juicy...” —RICHARD BUELL, THE BOSTON GLOBE, “...an incredible aural web ... a great ostinato of American kitsch. Sul pont never sounded so good.”—RUSSELL STEINBERG, composer, conductor of the LOS ANGELES YOUTH ORCHESTRA, “...I am bowled over by the expertise of your music: you use certain elements from the 19th century and from jazz, etc., and just at the moment when I am about to say, OK, what else is new?, you do a number of things, such as speeding up, becoming wildly dissonant, modulating to a distant continent, stopping completely and throwing some kind of total surprise ... you seem to know exactly when to do what and how much. I don’t know anybody else who can do it!” —ANDREW IMBRIE, American composer, Pulitzer Prize finalist, “... remarkable stuff...”
—MAX MORATH, American ragtime pianist, composer, actor & author, “...a loony composer from Oregon...” —MAX SHEA, WMUA 91.1FM, Amherst, MA, “Gary Noland is one of those 21st Century composers seeking to forge a new aesthetic based on older models that do not traffic in serialism or minimalism ... Zany waltzes, ragtime riffs, chorales, toccatas, and much else romp and tear through these depictions of superheroes and villains from his ‘chamber novels’; other pieces spoof serial music ... to grand operas ... and Jewish guilt.” —JACK SULLIVAN, AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE, “...Paranoid Ravel...”—ALEX DUNN, KZSU FM90.3, Stanford, CA, “...It’s a romantic romp, rhythmically robust yet melodically flirting with the nostalgia of cabaret, minus the sleazy diminution of spilled drinks and smelly ashtrays. Its elegance recalls Elgar, and the serious sides, a synthesis of those strange bedfellows Schubert and Ives. Composers hate it when their music reminds you of someone else’s, but writing within a tradition, Noland has incorporated divergent styles that, woven together, work. Cosmopolitan without snobbery, it’s intelligent, pleasurable and convincing.” —ROCKY LEPLIN, THE BERKELEY VOICE

MUSICAL PORTRAIT OF PLAYWRIGHT DAVID HIRSON

Gary Lloyd Noland, composer