NAG TORTURE performed by the PIMPLETON PROCRASTURBATION ENSEMBLE (May 8th, 2021). I have employed distorted versions of my own voice in this piece in an effort to make it sound as "gender-neutral" as possible (which may, admittedly, appear to be a blatant lie on the author's part in a thinly veiled effort to avoid being lambasted from every quarter for being thought of as not only sustaining but even perpetuating a politically incorrect frame of mind). Nevertheless, it is all but impossible to be un-reminded of this (in)famous quote by Samuel Johnson: "When female minds are embittered by age or solitude, their malignity is generally exerted in a rigorous and spiteful superintendence of domestic trifles." Perhaps Dr Johnson's apothegm could be more generally applied to bureaucrappic red tape in all its various forms and guises, which, in and of itself, might be perceived as constituting an all-encompassing sort of "nag torture." In the field of music creation, it is called "composus interruptus." Suffice it to say, such interruptions to the flow of one's creativity can be utterly maddening, to say the least, even hazardous to every facet of one's health and well-being. I am confident there are many prodigiously talented and productive artistic creators in the real world who can relate to the aforesaid phenomenon. Listen and enjoy! For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: https://composergarynoland.godaddysites.com/

NAG TORTURE performed by the PIMPLETON PROCRASTURBATION ENSEMBLE

The Pimpleton Procrasturbation Ensemble performs JACK-IN-THE-BOX NESTING DOLLS by Gary Lloyd Noland. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandomposer.com

JACK-IN-THE-BOX NESTING DOLLS

The Pimpleton Procrasturbation Ensemble performs A BRIEF HISTORY OF ORGANIZED RELIGION IN SOUND by Gary Lloyd Noland. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ORGANIZED RELIGION IN SOUND

The Pimpleton Procrasturbation Ensemble performs THE WANTON MICROAGGRESSIONS OF KNOW-IT-ALL KNOW-NOTHINGS by Gary Lloyd Noland. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

THE WANTON MICROAGGRESSIONS OF KNOW-IT-ALL KNOW-NOTHINGS

The Pimpleton Procrasturbation Ensemble performs I HAVE NO IDEA HOW WE EVER GOT HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE by Gary Lloyd Noland. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

I HAVE NO IDEA HOW WE EVER GOT HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE

The Pimpleton Procrasturbation Ensemble performs BWA HA HA! DWEEBALDO VAN BOOFUS, THE HIGH SCHOOL WHIPPING BOY, TAKES REVENGE ON HIS TORMENTORS BY WRITING ATONAL MUSIC! by Gary Lloyd Noland. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at garynolandcomposer.com

BWA HA HA! DWEEBALDO VAN BOOFUS, THE HIGH SCHOOL WHIPPING BOY, TAKES REVENGE ON HIS TORMENTORS BY…

The Pimpleton Procrasturbation Ensemble performs GENERICANA by Gary Lloyd Noland. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

GENERICANA

Soprano Hayley Boggs and pianist Maryna Buksha perform THE ANGELS OF LOS ANGELES, Op. 2, No. 2, from Gary Lloyd Noland's settings of John Willett's translations (into English) of two of Bertolt Brecht's HOLLYWOOD ELEGIES (1982). Permission for using poems granted by Methuen, Inc., 29 West 35th Street, New York, N.Y. 10001. Composer George Rochberg wrote to Noland in response to listening to his Hollywood Elegies (in 1983), "I'm amazed at your harmonic skill. Haven't seen or heard anything like it from anyone 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…" For more information on composer Gary Lloyd Noland, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

THE ANGELS OF LOS ANGELES for soprano & piano, Op. 2, No. 2

The Pimpleton Procrasturbation Ensemble performs COVID IS THE WORST THING SINCE THE BEETLES by Gary Lloyd Noland (April 6th, 2024). For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandocomposer.com

COVID IS THE WORST THING SINCE THE BEETLES

The Pimpleton Procrasturbation Ensemble performs BOYZ AND GIRLZ, JUST GET OVER IT AND MOVE ON! by Gary Lloyd Noland (April 21st, 2024). For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

BOYZ & GIRLZ, JUST GET OVER IT AND MOVE ON!

The Pimpleton Procrasturbation Ensemble performs BOYZ & GIRLZ, JUST GET OVER IT AND MOVE ON! by Gary Lloyd Noland. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at:

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

NAG TORTURE performed by the PIMPLETON PROCRASTURBATION ENSEMBLE

Gary Lloyd Noland, composer

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