Weston Noble
I first encountered Weston when I was a member of the 1966 Minnesota High School All-State Choir. Choral music was a big deal in Minnesota, and for many of us, All-State, which met at Bemidji State for one week each summer, was the pinnacle of what we would achieve. Our guest conductor was Weston Noble. We all knew his name: he was a legend in our Midwestern, Lutheran, mostly Norwegian American world. His college choir toured regularly through the Midwest, and he conducted a massive, all-city Messiah in Minneapolis each December. During All-State, I became aware of further connection: he rented a room on the Luther College campus from Magdalene Preus, my grandmother’s cousin, and was acquainted with many members of my family. Like the other participants in the program, I was swept off my feet by this young, 46-year old conductor, at the peak of his powers-- he knew exactly how to communicate with 17-year olds, and bring our musical performance to life.
I decided to attend Luther College, where Weston taught, and audition for choir, though I had no plans to study music, much less major in it. Arriving on campus, though, I was assigned a Music Department advisor, who convinced me to take first year music theory; and when I auditioned for choir, Weston suggested I take voice lessons. A year later, due to financial hardship, I moved out of the dorm and into Magdalene’s house-- and joined the Nordic Choir.
Weston was a regular fixture in my life, during the ensuing three years. I ate breakfast with him; rehearsed with his choir five days a week; shared a cat with him; watched the late news on TV with him before going to bed. I worked as student assistant in his office. He traveled frequently, to conduct festival choirs and attend meetings, all over the U.S.; when the travel was by plane, I drove him to the airport, and when the engagement was closer to home, I frequently drove him there and back. I talked endlessly with him, about my hopes and fears; he, in turn, listened, and counseled me, and talked about his own life and projects. My financial difficulties continued throughout college, and Weston always came to my rescue. When graduation came around, he was one of a handful of people who pushed me, hard, to attend graduate school at Chicago. And, a few years later, early in September 1977, he called me on the phone and offered me a job at Luther, conducting a new choir and teaching voice lessons.
As a college student, I was on the receiving end of his skill as a choral conductor, but never thought much about it. I had no intention of becoming a choral conductor, so I did not take notes. But an hour a day, five days a week, for three years, could not help but change me, and I absorbed a great deal; and maybe because I lacked an agenda, his conducting and teaching became more an integral part of me, than they would have, had I been at all calculating in my relationship with him. His exacting demands, his reductive techniques, his many stories and illustrations, became mine, though ultimately on my own terms, due to our very different personalities. He was small, well dressed and groomed; he loved driving expensive cars, was always tidy and careful, and circumspect in his social interaction. I was large and sloppy and careless, drove a junky car, was prone to hurtful social missteps. In other ways, though, we were very similar—in the integration of our emotional lives with our musical expression, in our restless insomnia, in our physical conducting gestures, in the close relationships we developed with our singers. We had different tastes and priorities, musically; leaving this aspect of him behind was a big part of my musical maturation, but it never came between the two of us personally.
I didn’t realize what I had, back when I had it: the opportunity to know another person, and such a formidable one at that, so well. I believe now it was best, that way. Naiveté allows us to be more porous toward the other.
As the years passed, Weston became more and more an eminence in the corporate choral world, speaking at conferences, accepting awards, becoming the public face of his profession. People wanted to meet him, be photographed with him, absorb some of his magic. My own professional trajectory was very different, and we inevitably grew apart. But the love and respect I felt for him, beginning when I was a teenager, though it changed and developed, never disappeared. A few years ago, not long before he died, Luther College presented me with the Weston Noble Award for achievement in vocal music education, and I treasure this award as much for the photo taken of us, as for the award itself. For so many years he helped and supported me; finally, it was my turn to support him.
