Interesting idea. Theroux's books are quite amazing. His Darconville's Cat and Three Wogs are masterpieces. I'm trying to recollect whether Darconville's Cat referenced specific music? If so, are you referencing them in this

MUSICAL PORTRAIT OF PLAYWRIGHT DAVID HIRSON

ARISTOBOMBASTIC TRIPE DREAM by Gary Lloyd Noland (July 30th, 2025). For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

ARISTOBOMBASTIC TRIPE DREAM

MIDNIGHT VACUUM CLEANING PHRENZY by Gary Lloyd Noland (July 30th, 2025). For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

MIDNIGHT VACUUM CLEANING PHRENZY

FRANTICALLY STRIVING TO FEEL OPTIMISTIC by Gary Lloyd Noland. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

FRANTICALLY STRIVING TO FEEL  OPTIMISTIC

GAUNTLET JAUNT by Gary Lloyd Noland (August 6th, 2025). For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

GAUNTLET JAUNT

VISPROINTIAMO No. 11 for piano, composed and performed by Gary Lloyd Noland. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

VISPROINTIAMO NO. 11 for piano

A HOST OF CONFLICTING AGENDAS by Gary Lloyd Noland. To read more about the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

A HOST OF CONFLICTING AGENDAS

PROMENADING PLUTOCRATIC MORONS by Gary Lloyd Noland. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

PROMENADING PLUTOCRATIC MORONS

AMBIENT MUSIC FOR NEUROTICS by Gary Lloyd Noland. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

AMBIENT MUSIC FOR NEUROTICS

DEI MADRIGAL for mixed choir by Gary Lloyd Noland (Sept. 18th, 2025). For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

DEI MADRIGAL for mixed choir

F*CK THE SYSTEM! for mixed choir, two pianos, and objects that can be hit, thrown & banged by Gary Lloyd Noland (September 21st, 2025). For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

F*CK THE SYSTEM! for mixed choir, two pianos, and objects that can be hit, thrown & banged

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 is my first attempt at a musical portrait. This portrait is of the novelist, essayist, and poet Alexander Theroux (born 1939)—a delicately sculpted, multi-layered comprovisation for piano. I am hoping to do more musical portraits of artists, writers, and performers who emanate powerfully luminous auras in their work. I have four or five other people in mind for this project.

PORTRAIT OF NOVELIST, ESSAYIST & POET ALEXANDER THEROUX for piano

This is a setting of Alexander Theroux's poem THE CABARET OF THERESIENSTADT for soprano & piano by composer GARY LLOYD NOLAND.

THE CABARET OF THERESIENSTADT (setting of poem by ALEXANDER THEROUX) for soprano & piano

SEPTET Op. 43 is conducted by Guy Tyler. Carol Robe, clarinet; Tom Bergeron, alto sax; Ellen Campbell, French horn; Tasana Nagavajara, violin; Anthony Dyer, violin; Forrest Moyer, double bass; Art Maddox, piano.
For more information on the composer go to: https://composergarynoland.godaddysit...
This piece was commissioned by the Oregon Music Teachers Association (OMTA) in conjunction with the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) for the Oregon Composer of the Year Award in 1999. It is available for purchase, along with nine other works by the composer, on the recording "Selected Music from Venge Art" at NorthPacificMusic.com

SEPTET Op. 43

"Amerikan Bozo Dance" is the eighth movement of "String Quartet No. 2" (Op. 32, 1993) by Gary Lloyd Noland. It is the musical "punchline" of the movement that precedes it (titled "Polyester Fugue").  Performance by the Onyx String Quartet: Anna Presler, violin; Phyllis Kamrin, violin; Kurt Rohde, viola; Leighton Fong, cello. For more information on the composer, go to his website at: https://composergarynoland.godaddysites.com/

AMERIKAN BOZO DANCE from STRING QUARTET NO. 2, Op. 32, No. 8

This is the fourth piece in a set of thirteen from ROYAL OILWORKS MUSIC by composer GARY LLOYD NOLAND (2006). It is available on CD from North Pacific Music. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: https://composergarynoland.godaddysites.com/

MY BABE'S GONE DOWN TO DO HER GLUE Op. 80, No. 4

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

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

PORTRAIT OF NOVELIST, ESSAYIST & POET ALEXANDER THEROUX for piano

Gary Lloyd Noland, composer

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