Patrick S. Noonan has been described as a 21st-century renaissance man. Scholar, business consultant, technologist, musician, activist, family man – he does it all.

Born in Springfield, Illinois, in 1955, Patrick excelled early in mathematics and science. A product of a musical family, he also took early interest in all kinds of music. As a grade-schooler, when he wasn’t wiring up circuit boards or building working-model submarines, he was singing along to new Beatles releases pretending to strum a tennis racket. (A real guitar followed, although his first instrument lessons were for the trombone.)

Patrick logged in many years playing electric guitar in garage bands until he left his hometown to attend college. There he met John Houshmand and Jonathan Levi, with whom he founded the groundbreaking acoustic group that became known as Laurasia. Combining folk, classical, jazz, bluegrass, rock and Near Eastern sounds, their innovative concerts and recordings (East River Consort & Undiscovered Country) made a mark on the New Acoustic Music movement of the 70’s and helped usher in New Age and World Music in the ’80s.

In 1996 Patrick released Beat Noir, his first solo recording, after seven years in the making and at the urging of his brother Peter, who had recently released several recordings of solo piano on his new Wild Orchard label. In April, 2000, Patrick and Peter released their first-ever collaboration, Scott’s Red Star, a beautiful and delightful fusion of their diverse instrumental influences.

Patrick’s parallel education and professional tracks have been equally impressive and eclectic. His undergraduate degree is in applied mathematics from Yale, where he later returned for an MBA after years playing music full-time with Laurasia and working as a director for environmental group Greenpeace. His business experience includes 4 years with the prestigious McKinsey & Company management consulting firm, plus 10 years with a consulting firm he co-founded. He earned a PhD from Harvard in Decision Sciences, a training he has put to use as a faculty member at the Harvard Business School, at Emory’s Goizueta Business School (where he spent 25 years, and now is an emeritus professor), and as a visiting faculty member at Duke University and a guest at other institutions around the world.

In 2018, he reunited with his childhood band-mates to mark the 50th anniversary of their first rock gig (at age 12). This led to the formation of the band Outer Park, which has since released 3 albums.

In 2022, he and his Laurasia band-mates returned to the studio to begin work on their first new studio recordings as a group since the 1980s. “Brotherhood: The East River Songs” was released on Sept. 12, 2023, coinciding with Laurasia’s 50th Anniversary Concert at New York City’s famed Joe’s Pub.

Patrick is already working on his next several recording projects, including mixing a live album from an Outer Park concert, curating vault releases from his Laurasia band-mate John Houshmand, and reworking his 2000 release “Scott’s Red Star” in time for its 25th anniversary.

After 50 years of life in the large metro areas of New York, Boston and Atlanta, Patrick has recently moved to North Carolina, where he divides his time between Greensboro & Boone.

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