COVID IS THE WORST THING SINCE THE BEETLES

The Pimpleton Procrasturbation Ensemble performs SIRENIC SNARECROWS by Gary Lloyd Noland. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: https://composergarynoland.godaddysites.com/

SIRENIC SNARECROWS

Pianists Gary Lloyd Noland and Terry Wergeland perform JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE PHOTO MONTAGE for piano & electronics, Op. 130 by Gary Lloyd Noland. This performance took place at Room 75 Lincoln Hall, Portland State University, Portland Oregon, Decemeber 4th, 2022. This work is dedicated to Belgian pianist Lukas Huisman.
For more information on composer Gary Lloyd Noland, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE PHOTO MONTAGE for piano & electronics, Op. 130

WINTRY DIVERSION for flute, clarinet, cello, double bass, percussion & electronics: in memoriam Tomas Svoboda (1939-2022) (February 28th, 2024). WINTRY DIVERSION for flute, clarinet, cello, double bass, piano, percussion & electronics: in memoriam TOMAS SVOBODA (1939-2022). I first met Tomas on February 29th, 2000, when my concert series Seventh Species featured him performing a selection of his piano works at St. Anne's Chapel, Marylhurst College, to promote the (then) new CD album release of his piano music on the North Pacific Music label. Kudos to Jack Gabel for organizing this historic event. Tomas continued, over the ensuing years, to participate on Seventh Species concerts after I moved to Portland in 2005. I was incredibly honored to have him present his compositions on my humble little concert series, as he was one of the most impressive musicians I have ever met: a master composer, a phenomenal pianist and percussionist, and, by all accounts, a virtuoso conductor. He was also an accomplished chess player and an amateur meteorologist. One thing I had in common with Tomas was a childish love of a good snowfall. One late January evening in 2012, after I had returned from a concert in Portland, it was snowing pretty hard (by Portland, Oregon standards). At around 11:00 pm there was a hard rap on my front door. This was not a normal occurrence at such an ungodly hour, so, quite naturally, my guard went up upon approaching the front door to see who it might be. Imagine my surprise, then, to find Tomas at my doorstep eagerly suggesting we take a walk in the snow (thus the title of this piece)! Of course, I couldn't resist such an invitation, so we walked for about an hour through the three or four inches of snow that had accumulated in the neighborhood (he lived only a few blocks away from me, just north of the Reed College campus). In the years I had known him he shared with me some of the seminal moments in his life. He had studied with Martinu, had been friends with Shostakovich and Copland, and had been invited to parties in L.A. attended by Stravinsky (whom, he told me, he was too shy to approach at the time). In his early life Tomas and his family  were on the run from the Nazis and, after the war, he defected to the West to meet his future wife, the artist Jana Demartini, after making a dangerous border crossing into Austria. For many years Tomas taught music courses at Portland State University and was, by far, the most celebrated composer in the Northwest. Tragically, in late 2012 Tomas suffered a massive stroke and was wheelchair-bound until his death ten years later. In his final years he was, sadly, unable to compose or play the piano. He did, however, enjoy attending concerts. Kaori (my wife) and I moved away from the neighborhood shortly after Tomas had had his stroke, so we rarely saw him in his final ten years. Tomas and six other composers (including myself) were the founding members of Cascadia Composers, so Tomas and I used to attend board meetings together, taking turns driving one another to and from the meetings once a month. I know this memorial piece is rather late in the making, seeing that Tomas passed away in November, 2022, but better late than never! Tomas, know that the warmth of your presence is deeply missed!

WINTRY DIVERSION: in memoriam Tomas Svoboda (1939-2022)

The Pimpleton Procrasturbation Ensemble performs DISCOMMUNICATION INTERCEPTIONS FROM THE BIMONTHLY MEETINGS OF THE CACADEMIC SNUBCOMMITTEE PRESIDING OVER THE PIMPLETON STATE LOONIVERSITY SCHOOL OF THE ARTS by Gary Lloyd Noland. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

DISCOMMUNICATION INTERCEPTIONS FROM THE BIMONTHLY MEETINGS OF THE CACADEMIC SNUBCOMMITTEE…

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

ANGST BUFFET

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 ABOVE THE FOUR CITIES, Op. 2, No. 1 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

ABOVE THE FOUR CITIES from HOLLYWOOD ELEGIES for soprano & piano, Op. 2, No. 1

The Pimpleton Procrasturbation Ensemble performs AN EMBARRASSMENT OF PITCHES & GLITCHES by Gary Lloyd Noland (March 19th, 2024). For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

AN EMBARRASSMENT OF PITCHES & GLITCHES

The Pimpleton Procrasturbation Ensemble performs THE ADVERSE REPERCUSSIONS OF COGNITIVE INTERRUPTUS by Gary Lloyd Noland. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

THE ADVERSE REPERCUSSIONS OF COGNITIVE INTERRUPTUS

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

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:

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

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

COVID IS THE WORST THING SINCE THE BEETLES

Gary Lloyd Noland, composer