Weston Noble (born 1922) is a highly accomplished and honored American music educator and conductor.
Currently guest conductor of the Augustana Choir at Augustana College in [[Sioux Falls, South Dakota|Sioux Falls], South Dakota, he is best known for his 57-year tenure as conductor of the Luther College Nordic Choir from 1948 to 2005 and the Luther College Concert Band from 1948 to 1973. He has also served as guest director for over 800 music festivals in all three media—choral, orchestral and wind—spanning four continents.
Following retirement from Luther, he served as artist-in-residence at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he taught in the music department and conducted the Carthage Choir. He went on to serve a similar position as visiting professor of music and interim conductor of the Wartburg Choir at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa.
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Weston Henry Noble (b. 1922) was born and raised on a farm located just west of Riceville, Iowa to parents of English ancestry. Later, he was confirmed in the Free Methodist Church and received his early education in a country one-room schoolhouse until the eighth grade, afterward attending the local Riceville High School. Like many young Iowans with an interest in music at that time, Noble played in the high school band, sang in the choir, and played clarinet solos at state music contest. He first demonstrated his talents when taking piano lessons at the urging of his paternal aunt, Ruby (Noble) Dunton, and came to master the clarinet, organ, and piano as well.
Though he originally intended to enroll at The University of Iowa, Noble, through the influence of his father, Merwin, enrolled at nearby Luther College in 1939 at the age of 16. Majoring in history with work in music (not yet a major at the college), he quickly drew the attention of the music faculty due to his talents in conducting, sparked, according to Noble, by the last minute request of Schola Cantorum director Theodore Hoelty-Nickel to lead a rehearsal in his absence. In his second year he began leading rehearsals. He did his student teaching at nearby Decorah High School.
Due largely to the intense patriotism of World War II, and anticipating an eventual call-up, Noble volunteered for military service and was called to active duty in February 1943, in the spring of his senior year. Nevertheless, arrangements were made for him and others to accelerate their studies and complete their final semester prior to commencement. He graduated magna cum laude. Trained as a tank driver, he saw action in the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 and was part of the main Allied thrust into the heart of Nazi Germany in 1945. Noble "liberated" some items from Berlin during the initial stages of the Allied occupation, including a marble bust of Beethoven previously owned by Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, which he mailed home among several items.
Discharged from military service, Noble returned to Iowa in 1946 and spent two years teaching high school in Lu Verne, where he directed the school's music program and taught courses in the social sciences. While in graduate school at the University of Michigan, his alma mater, Luther College, asked him to serve as interim director of the band and choir on a one-year faculty appointment. His appointment was extended to two years, and then became more permanent beginning in 1950. During a highly distinguished 57-year career, Noble served as music director of the Luther College Concert Band from 1948–1973 and The Nordic Choir from 1948-2005.
Following his retirement, he served a one-year appointment as visiting conductor-in-residence at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin during the 2007-08 academic year. During 2008-09, Mr. Noble conducted The Wartburg Choir and Ritterchor at a nearby sister institution, Wartburg College, in Waverly, Iowa. He replaced Paul A. Torkelson, a protégé and close friend of Mr. Noble, who has now retired from Wartburg to conduct professionally for MidAmerica Productions at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Noble is an internationally acclaimed conductor as well as a music educator. His distinguished career includes conducting more than 900 music festivals throughout the United States, Australia, Canada, Europe, Russia, Asia, and South America. The venues include Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Los Angeles Music Center, Chicago Orchestra Hall, the Ordway Theater in St. Paul, Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, and the Bolshoi, Kremlin and Tchaikovsky Halls in Moscow. He is the only director to have led all-state choruses, bands and orchestras in all fifty states.
In 2006 Noble was guest director of a choir partly made up of Nordic Choir alumni. This choir had a two-week concert tour of Europe and was in residence at the Salzburg Festival part of that time. From that tour was formed the WESTON NOBLE ALUMNI CHOIR - a 70 voice choir that meets on the campus of Luther College every summer for a week of rehearsals and a performance. The WESTON NOBLE ALUMNI CHOIR has since then made a return to Europe in 2010 for a two week concert tour and will be doing a west coast tour in summer of 2012. This organization may be reached at - www.westonnoblealumnichoir.org
In the spring of 2006, he conducted the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in a national radio broadcast. He also received the Distinguished Service Award from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, making him the only non-Mormon to ever receive this award. In June 2006, he was once again the guest conductor at Guam's 3rd Annual Pacific Summer Music Festival. Most recently he guest conducted the JMU ACDA Choral Fest.
In December, 2010, at the age of 88 years old, Noble traveled to South Korea (for the first time), to conduct a concert of Handel's "Messiah" for the Camarata Music Company.
Noble built the 72-voice Nordic Choir into one of the most elite a cappella college choirs in the United States. His Nordic Choir has performed throughout the United States and, indeed, much of the world. He has served as guest conductor at more than 950 music festivals around the world.
[http://www.westonnoblealumnichoir.org