This is affecting!  Do the sounds actually come from the relevant news footage?

Symphonious Detritus and other compositions by Gary Lloyd Noland

I was awakened by a telephone call from Kaiser Hospital in Oakland early on the morning of February 24th, 2022 in my motel room in Ashland, Oregon to be informed by a doctor that my mother had just passed away from Covid. My wife Kaori and I were en route from Portland to Berkeley in the hopes that we would be able to visit her one last time. She had been fully vaccinated and boosted and had remained in isolation for almost two years, so the news of her death was absolutely devastating to us. It was only minutes thereafter that I learned of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Of course, "Invasion" is not a strong enough word to describe what happened. Let's call it what it is: a "murderous onslaught," a "massacre of innocents,"  "The Rape of Ukraine"—thus the title. Words cannot even begin to describe the turmoil of feelings and emotions I experienced on that awful and infamous day. I have already paid a musical tribute to my mother's memory with a piano piece I composed titled "Empty Dwelling," which can be heard here on Soundcloud. Regarding Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I am no longer able to remain silent. As a composer, I am best equipped to articulate my sentiments thru music—sentiments I am confident are universally felt by anyone who isn't a psychopath. For more information about me and my works, please visit my website at: garynolandcomposer.com

THE RAPE OF UKRAINE

The PIMPLETON PROCRASTURBATION ENSEMBLE perform MAX UND MORITZ DO LAS VEGAS by GARY LLOYD NOLAND. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

MAX UND MORITZ DO LAS VEGAS

The PIMPLETON PROCRASTURBATION ENSEMBLE performs ELEGY FOR AN EFFIGY OF YOU-KNOW-WHO by GARY LLOYD NOLAND. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

ELEGY FOR AN EFFIGY OF YOU-KNOW-WHO

The PIMPLETON PROCRASTURBATION ENSEMBLE performs SYNPHONIOUS DETRITUS by GARY LLOYD NOLAND. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

SYMPHONIOUS DETRITUS

Pianist Lukas Huisman performs ENIGMOUS PRELUDE Op. 103 by Gary Lloyd Noland. The composer dedicated this piece to the pianist. For more information on Gary Lloyd Noland, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com.

ENIGMOUS PRELUDE for piano Op. 103

Soprano Anna Haagenson and pianist Stephanie Thompson perform Gary Lloyd Noland's setting of Alexander Theroux's poem "The Cabaret of Theresienstadt" Op. 109. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

THE CABARET OF THERESIENSTADT for soprano & piano Op. 109 (poem by Alexander Theroux)

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

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

THE RAPE OF UKRAINE

Gary Lloyd Noland, composer

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