Lyric soprano Lilian Tong performs Gary Lloyd Noland's setting of Alexander Theroux's poem MARRIAGE for soprano & alto, Op. 147, No. 1 (July 7th, 2023).

Poem MARRIAGE by Alexander Theroux:

"Any enjoyment is weakened when shared."—DeSade

What holds down a carpet? Tacks.
Theory's nice, but not facts.
And while sweetness surely attracts,
Remember, honey makes wax.

The composer has received permission by the author to set this poem to music. Poem published in Collected Poems (Fantagraphics), copyright © 2015 by Alexander Theroux.

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

MARRIAGE for soprano & alto, Op. 147, No. 1; poem by Alexander Theroux

Lyric Soprano Lilian Tong performs Gary Lloyd Noland's setting of Alexander Theroux's poem "What Was The Peach To Nellie Melba?" for soprano & alto, Op. 147, No. 7.

Poem by Alexander Theroux

Since you won’t be my lover,
I refuse to be your friend.
It may be vulgar, this
Hideous female trend,

But I’m one, like God, in number,
Choose to be unique;
You’re with me or against me.
I all or nothing seek.

Don’t ask me to be generous.
Pragmatism’s me;
Show me love and friendship?
Antithesis I see.

I’m a modern woman,
Of this please have no doubt:
I stick around with someone
Only if things work out.

If nothing’s finally in it,
What’s a visit or a drink
To a woman who wants marriage?
I go by what I think

And can measure in a man
Who’ll commit himself to me.
I go by what is solid,
Not by what I see.

No dyads or dichotomies
For such as me, my friend;
To me a value’s what
I’m holding in the end.

Don’t talk to me of grace,
You go from bad to worse.
Winter’s round the corner.
Put money in thy purse.

No parts for me, come round
When ready with the whole.
Bugger drinks and dinner.
I want to own your soul.

Poem copyright © 2015 by Alexander Theroux from Collected Poems (published by Fantagraphics); Music copyright © 2023 by Gary Lloyd Noland • BMI

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

WHAT WAS THE PEACH TO NELLIE MELBA? for soprano & alto, Op. 147, No. 7; poem by Alexander Theroux

Soprano Hayley Boggs and pianist Maryna Buksha perform Gary Lloyd Noland's setting of Alexander Theroux's poem "All Roys are fat," Op. 106 (2019) 

All Roys are fat but tubbiness can’t hurt
in everything that life presents of choice.
Don’t push away that wet dessert.
Doesn’t size allow a fuller voice?

Portliness by definition makes a ring.
I say eat the head off anything.

If a belt’s too short around your waist, try string.
What is comic usually can sing.

Music by Gary Lloyd Noland, Op. 106
Poem by Alexander Theroux

Music copyright © 2019 by Gary Lloyd Noland
Text from Collected Poems copyright © 2015 by Alexander Theroux 
Permission to set this poem has been granted by the author.

ALL ROYS ARE FAT for soprano & piano, Op. 106: poem by Alexander Theroux

Lyric soprano Lilian Tong performs Gary Lloyd Noland's setting of Alexander Theroux's poem WHEN I FELL IN LOVE for soprano & alto, Op. 147, No. 3. For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com  For information on novelist/essayist/poet Alexander Theroux, Google his name. For information on lyric soprano Lilian Tong, please visit her website at: https://www.lilian-tong.com/

WHEN I FELL IN LOVE WITH YOU; poem by Alexander Theroux

When I fell in love with you
I felt so famous in my own eyes,
filled with such a force

and famished for the size
of the fame of falling fullness,
finally finding love,

I could feel almost faint
with force and as filled with fame
as love is with surprise.

When I fell in love with you
I felt equally frail in my own eyes,
filled less with force and fire

than famished for the feel
of the fearful force of falling in love,
fat with a filled feeling,

almost faint as famous,
and as fully frightful of falling is
when I fell for you.  

Poem copyright © 2015 by Alexander Theroux from Collected Poems (published by Fantagraphics)
Music copyright © 2023 by Gary Lloyd Noland

WHEN I FELL IN LOVE for soprano & alto, Op. 147, No. 3; poem by Alexander Theroux

Lyric soprano Lilian Tong performs Gary Lloyd Noland's setting of Alexander Theroux's poem EVERYONE'S HEAD DESCRIBES A BUM for soprano & alto, Op. 147, No. 6 (August 13th, 2023). For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com For information on novelist/essayist/poet Alexander Theroux, Google his name. For information on lyric soprano Lilian Tong, please visit her website at: www.lilian-tong.com/



Everyone's Head Descirbes a Bum
poem by Alexander Theroux

Everyone's head describes a bum.
It seats you for the life you have to face.
In the way it beats you it's a drum.
I own up to mine with some disgrace.
Bounce it down the stairway of the years,
With its wrinkles, buttock cheeks, and tears,
Born of bumps and thumps and slaps and fears.

Music copyright © 2023 by Gary Lloyd Noland • BMI
Poem copyright © 2015 by Alexander Theroux from Collected Poems (published by Fantagraphics) 
The  composer has received permission by the author to set this poem to music.

EVERYONE'S HEAD DESCRIBES A BUM for soprano & alto, Op. 147, No. 6; poem by Alexander Theroux

Soprano Hayley Boggs and pianist Maryna Buksha perform Gary Lloyd Noland's setting of Alexander Theroux's poem SCHICKLGRUBER AND DJUGASHVILI, Op. 107 (August 13th, 2023). For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com For information on novelist/essayist/poet Alexander Theroux, Google his name.

Poem by Alexander Theroux

Schicklgruber and Djugashvili

Solely in terms of mood and your soul feeling chilly, 
Which freezes it most, Schicklgruber or Djugashvili?
I mean in the blot-out-able sense of a spot-remover, 
What name is worse, Dugashvili or Schicklgruber?
Say between two voices, one hoarse and one shrilly, 
Which would you take, Schicklgruber or Djugashvili? 
A choice above ground or below, like tomato or tuber, 
select one or the other, Djugashvili or Schicklgruber. 
The question is political, please, so don’t say it’s silly, 
Vote for one or the other, Schicklgruber or Djugashvili. 
See, one name may seem rude and the other one ruder, 
But the options are these, Dgugashvili or Schicklgruber. 
So which is it, far Right or far Left? Save your breath. 
At the extreme of whichever you choose awaits death.

Poem copyright 2015 by Alexander Theroux from Collected Poems (published by Fantagraphics). Music copyright © 2019 by Gary Lloyd Noland • 7th Species • BMI

Permission granted by the author to the composer to set his poem to music.

SCHICKLGRUBER AND DJUGASHVILI for soprano & piano, Op. 107; poem by Alexander Theroux

Lyric soprano Lilian Tong performs Gary Lloyd Noland's setting of Alexander Theroux's poem ETERNAL RECURRENCE for alto & soprano, Op. 147, No. 8. For more information on composer Gary Lloyd Noland, please visit his website at: www.garynolandcomposer.com For information on novelist/essayist/poet Alexander Theroux, Google his name. For information on lyric soprano Lilian Tong, please visit her website at: www.lilian-tong.com/

Poem "Eternal Recurrence" by Alexander Theroux

Isn't it just like you
to say because I find you loathsome
I'm bitter at the world?

Don't you need me to lie
about you the easier for you to deny
you yourself are a churl?

So why not indict a world
in which a swine so mean and small
fobs himself off as a pearl?

Poem copyright © 2015 by Alexander Theroux from Collected Poems (published by Fantagraphics)
Music copyright © 2023 by Gary Lloyd Noland • BMI

ETERNAL RECURRENCE for alto & soprano, Op. 147, No. 8; poem by Alexander Theroux

Soprano Hayley Boggs and pianist Maryna Buksha perform Gary Lloyd Noland's setting of Alexander Theroux's poem "Winter Wounds" (October 10th, 2023, Op. 148). For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

Poem by Alexander Theroux

Imagine the moron
Who is loved
Thinking she deserves
By looks or fame or fate
Another's heart,
And so reserves
Part of what she thinks
She shouldn't give
To her less-deserving mate.
You can take the time,
Queen Pig, to spend
A lifetime as a fop?
We deserve nothing,
Unless everything—
You are certainly
Not enough—
To compensate for all
The lies we're told,
Your haughty huffs.
If someone in the world
Should ever be chosen
To rage against the cold
At the last minute,
The pall of coming death,
It won't be me;
I'll welcome it,
Without deliberation,
Without a reservation,
Winter wounds and all.

Poem copyright 2015 by Alexander Theroux from Collected Poems (published by Fantagraphics). Music copyright © 2019 by Gary Lloyd Noland • 7th Species • BMI

Permission granted by the author to the composer to set his poem to music.

WINTER WOUNDS for soprano & piano, Op. 148; poem by Alexander Theroux

Soprano & alto Lilian Tong and pianist Maryna Buksha perform HYMN OF VISION; poem by Alexander Theroux; music by Gary Lloyd Noland. I was recently honored to be asked by the great novelist/poet/essayist Alexander Theroux to set this poem to music. Upon hearing it, Alexander wrote me to describe it as: "Stately majestic, elegant in every way."

Poem HYMN OF VISION by Alexander Theroux:

Making me see He took time to see me,
along with helping me feel I was seen,
that I need from His sight never to flee,
as a poor redeemed sinner, now clean,
I could look upon myself by His mercy
with a blessed insight to see I could be
viewed no longer a lost soul unworthy
who though once a slave was now free.

For more information on the composer, please visit his website at: garynolandcomposer.com

For more information on Alexander Theroux, Google his name. Also, go to Amazon to order his books.

Poem copyright © 2023 by Alexander Theroux; music copyright © 2024 by Gary Lloyd Noland

HYMN OF VISION for soprano, alto, and piano, Op. 153; poem by Alexander Theroux

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

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