Weston Noble remembered for creating community

DECORAH - Legendary choral and instrumental conductor Weston Noble was more than the keeper of the beat at Luther College in Decorah. He was the heartbeat of the school where he taught for 57 years.

'Each time a prospective student comes to our campus and comes to visit with me, I get to tell them the statistic that we have a thousand student musicians on this campus - and that is directly because of Weston Noble,” said Andrew Last, a Luther grad who is now an assistant professor of music at his alma mater.

'He believed that in this community at Luther College, there was a place for future career musicians, there was a place for scientists and mathematicians, artists, writers and those who were still unsure of where their career was calling each of them. But there was a place for them at his table on this campus.”

Noble died Wednesday at age 94, from complications of a fall. Visitation is from noon to 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 29, at First Lutheran Church, 604 W. Broadway St., Decorah, concluding with a short prayer service at 6 p.m. Private family graveside services with full military honors take place at Riverside Cemetery in his hometown of Riceville on Friday, Dec. 30. Fjelstul Funeral Home in Decorah is handling the arrangements.

A celebration of life also is being planned on the Luther campus at a later date.

Noble graduated from Luther College in 1943 and joined the faculty in 1948, conducting the acclaimed Nordic Choir until 2005 and the Concert Band until 1973, creating community through music.

All of his choristers held hands during their performances - a practice that continues today. And even if first-timers find that a little awkward, Last said that once they feel the energy flowing from hand to hand, they understand how it keeps them tuned in with each other.

'If I told the students we were going to do a concert without that, there would be a bit of a revolt,” Last said.

Noble's hands stretched out across the Midwest, across the country and across the world. He was a charter member of the American Choral Directors Association, and in 1994 the North Central Division honored him with a lifetime achievement award bearing his name. Among his other awards are five honorary doctoral degrees and St. Olav's Medal from King Harald V of Norway, for contributions to Norwegian-American relations.

Nobel served as guest director for more than 900 all-state bands, orchestras, choirs and festivals across four continents. Resident conductor for the Pacific Summer Music Festival of Guam, he also conducted the Korea National Choir in Seoul in 2013, and at the International Schools Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2009.

A small man with a soft voice, Noble drove tanks in World War II and fought in the Battle of the Bulge and the Allied attack on Nazi Germany in 1945. A post on Classical Minnesota Public Radio's website says that the history buff sought out Hitler's abandoned headquarters near the Brandenburg Gate, sat with his boots atop Hitler's desk, then hammered off a chunk of the marble top and mailed it home, but it never arrived.

Born Nov. 30, 1922, in Riceville, north of Waterloo near the Minnesota border, his friends and colleagues said he liked big cars, driving fast, and had a great sense of humor. Mostly, they spoke of his zest for life, which flowed through his music and mentoring.

'He's a spiritual man. He's soft-spoken, but what he says comes with the fewest words and the biggest powerful punch you can get,” said Cedar Rapids native Karen Brunssen, who studied under Nobel at Luther and is now an associate professor of voice and opera at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. He also delivered the homily at her wedding 40 years ago.

She especially admired 'the humanity that he brought into the music, and how his choice of tempi and texture spoke to you as you sang, and of course spoke to the audience, too,” she said.

'But my favorite part with him was rehearsals. He helped so many of us to appreciate that process and the creation of the music we were going to do. A life full of music is pretty nice, but a life full of the humanity behind the music is profound.”

He propelled Luther to the top tier of the nation's choral programs and Nordic Choir to the upper echelon of choral ensembles, said Bradley Barrett, artistic director of Chorale Midwest in Cedar Rapids.

'He operated within the well-respected Lutheran choral tradition that existed so heavily in the upper Midwest,” said Barrett, a Missouri native who has taught music for more than 35 years. 'He was a troubadour for that sound. He spent a lot of his time doing placements - making sure voices were properly placed for a cohesive blend.”

His humanity permeated all his endeavors, and that's his legacy for choral directors, added Bob Anderson, director of choral activities at Linn-Mar High School in Marion.

'Because of the way he made connection with the music and the spiritual side of how you deliver that, and the joy with which you live, whenever you met him as a conductor, you knew that you'd been introduced to another level of interpreting a piece of music,” Anderson said.

'His legacy is to challenge us to look at text and understand how we're delivering it as humans to humans and how that creates a complete choral experience,” he said. 'In the world of choral music, there are very, very few that have ever gotten to the level of how to transmit that to people. It's unreal - just an amazing man.”

A full list of Noble's accomplishments can be found on the Luther College website.

l Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com