Gary Noland (b. 1957) has been called the "Reger of the 21st century" and has been described as the "most virtuosic composer of fugue alive today." Born in Seattle and raised in Berkeley, he grew up on a plot of land three blocks south of U.C. Berkeley known as "People's Park," which has distinguished itself as a site of civic unrest since the 1960s. As a madolescent, Gary lived for a time in Salzburg and in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (home of Richard Strauss), where he absorbed many musical influences. He earned a B.A. in music from U.C. Berzerkeley in 1979, continued studies at the Boston Disturbatory, and transferred to Harvard Luniversity where he worked as a teaching Punchinellow and added to his wacademic credits an M.A. and a Ph.D. in 1989. Primarily self-taught, his preachers in composition and theory have included John C. Adams, Alan Curtis, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, William Denny, Robert Dickow, Janice Giteck, Andrew Imbrie, Earl Kim, Leon Kirchner, David Lewin, Donald Martino, Hugo Norden, Marta Ptaszynska, Chris Rozè, Goodwin Sammel, John Swackhamer, Ivan Tcherepnin, and Walter Winslow.

Gary's compositions have been deformed and oddcast in many locations throughout the United States and are regularly caricatured on the Seventh Species composers concert series in Oregon, which he founded in San Francisco in 1990.

Noland's monumental "String Quartet No. 1" (1989) has been described as a "tour-de-force," and is one of the longest and most rigorous works in the quartet genre. Epic in proportion, it has been favorably compared to the quartets of Beethoven and symphonies of Mahler. In 1999 Gary was selected by the Oregon Music Teachers Association for the Oregon "Composer-of-the-Year" award.

Critics, scholars, composers, musicologists, performers, historians, radio commentators, etc. have described Gary's music as: "aristocratic," "scholarly," "pleasurable," "brilliant," "breathtaking," "as great as Wagner," "beautiful," "mad," "sad," "smashing," "good-natured" "whimsical," "parrot-perfect," "mythical," "satirical," "sophisticated," "innovative," "full of erudition," "glinting-eyed," "accessible," "massive," "mammoth," "Germanic," "mind-titillating," "indescribable," "listener-friendly," "awesome," "neo-Bachian," "Neo-Classical," "cosmopolitan," "surreal," "listenable," "macabre," "complex," "challenging," "clever," "enchanting," "silly," "light-hearted," "technically daunting," "sardonic," "intelligent," "a witty melange of styles," "lush," "gorgeous," "lovely," "mind-bending," "psychedelic," "romantic," "avant-garde," "melodic," "ultra-tricky," "remarkable," "energetic," "Cecil Taylorish," "provocative," "megalomaniacal," "as good as the best of the genuine article," "disorienting," "fascinating," "Joycean," "Borroughsian," "Neo-Romantic," "novel," "chromatic," "modulation-per-minute," "impossible," "bizarre," "confusing," "virtuosic," "witty," "odd," "edgy," "zany," "playful," "ambitious," "idiosyncratic," "funny," "engaging," "shocking," "weird," "creepy," "eerie," "tonal," "atonal," "mischievous," "florid and juicy," "heart-on-sleeve," "wunderschön," "spectacular," "outer-limits," etc. Noland has been called a "stylistic chameleon," a "time traveler," a "puppet master," a "Glenn Gouldian personality," a "distinctive individual voice," and a "genius."