It’s been a great time with the Weston Noble Alumni Choir, which – if I understand its history correctly – formed for the first time in 2006 to give any interested Nordic Choir alums the chance to once again sing under the inspiring leadership of the master himself. This year’s group is the biggest yet, and they represent Luther graduating classes spanning just over fifty years, which when you think about it is an amazing thing.
The vast majority of singers in the choir (which of course fluctuates each year according to who is available and interested in participating in it) are from well before my time, and that was strongly underscored at our party at Mabe’s Pizza Monday night. For the first time, they decided to seat us at this party according to when you graduated from Luther- – – so for instance there was the table of oldest graduates (I think they might have called themselves the Alphas) who graduated between 1950 and 1957. The next table was maybe graduates from 1958 through 1963 – and so on . . . with the choir split into roughly equal portions. It tells you something that the youngest table at the party – the so-called Kids’ Table – covered grads from 1976 through 2001. The plan was that each table would put together some sort of group presentation which would represent a sampling of some of their favorite memories of Nordic, Mr. Noble, and life at Luther. (This year’s choir is the biggest yet, and the fear was that if every single person got up and reminisced, as has been the practice in previous years, we would all miss Thursday night’s concert because we would still be in the basement of Mabe’s Pizza Parlor, listening to each other’s stories. So this scenario was devised mostly to save time but also to get us talking with one another.
By the way, the fact that you could gather up all of the participants from such a wide swath of time and end up with a group equal to the others (representing much narrower ranges of time) indicates how membership in the choir has been slanted, age-wise. Part of the issue, I’m sure, is that the typical young adult with a spouse and children still at home might not feel right about spending a week in the summer doing something like this – but for Empty Nesters it is a splendid opportunity. And truth be told, I would not find this experience to be one tenth as interesting as it is if there weren’t plenty of people who graduated decades before I did, who represent entirely different chapters in the choir’s history, and with fascinating stories to match.
For instance, as part of the Alpha Table’s presentation, one gentleman stood up and explained that his first two years in the Nordic Choir were spent under another director’s leadership, and it was only his senior year that a brand new, young guy by the name of Weston Noble arrived on the scene to take over the top choir of his alma mater. That was absolutely amazing to me that we had in our midst someone whose days with Nordic actually pre-dated Mr. Noble, who conducted the choir for more than fifty years. I can still hardly wrap my head around that.
Another memorable moment came with the presentation of the next graduates, because during their collective time at Luther occurred the dramatic 1961 fire that completely destroyed Preus Gymnasium – which happened to be the building where Nordic rehearsed. A graduate from around that time explained that the choir lost everything in the fire- all its music, its robes, and everything that had been in Mr. Noble’s office, including his books etc. When the choir had a meeting the next day, Mr. Noble explained told them “all I have is today’s mail. Everything else is gone.” It was incredible to imagine what that must have felt like and how hard it had to have been to come back from such a devastating setback. But they did!
For the group of grads who spanned the late 60’s and early 70’s, there were hilarious stories – but then a sobering postscript, when one of the alums at that table said that their era had lost a number of their own in the previous couple of years, including the choir presidents of four consecutive years. As they read off the names of Nordic alums who had recently passed away, a number of the names were names that had figured prominently in the humorous stories that had just been told. And when the guy was done reading off those names, he said simply “we wish they could be here with us.” It was a powerful moment that underscored first of all how much history was represented in the 70-ish singers gathered there. . . but also of how it was a history even bigger than us, and that as time goes on, more and more names fall away- but of course are not forgotten.
The 1976-2001 group actually split into two, since it was such a wide array of years, and the more recent grads wanted to do something about the practice of passing strange objects between them during Nordic concerts. . . something which never happened in my day, at least as far as I know. So we let the more recent grads do their own hilarious sketch about that – while we chose instead to tell some stories about the memorable choir tour of 1980 which took us to Washington D.C., Disney World, Santo Domingo, Mexico City, and California – with our stories culminating in a re-enactment of our memorable performance on Mexican television in which 6 or 7 members of the choir fainted under the intense heat of the lights. But nobody in the room knew that’s what was going to happen. We just started singing “My God how Wonderful Thou Art” and a measure and a half in, we all collapsed in a collective heap.
It was a night of great fun – topped off by the story Jim “Lips” Labelle told about how tour manager Curt Rieso, realizing the choir was incredibly drained and stressed after all we’d been through, dispatched someone to buy as many cigars and as much beer as $100 would cover, so the choir could enjoy a special night of fun by the hotel pool that evening. I of course have no clear recollection of any such party because I was probably too busy touring the great cathedrals of Mexico City instead. And Mr. Rieso denies the whole thing. But Jim is adamant and I do have a vague recollection that such a thing happened- although I would have preferred sticking my head in a hive swarming with angry bees to attending a poolside party with beer and cigars, which explains why I wasn’t there. But it’s fun to imagine it- especially when Jim describes Mr. Noble himself floating in the middle of the pool with a can of beer in one hand and a cigar in the other—- although that sure seems like a case of a rich imagination gone wild.
Anyway, there we were – swapping stories from five different decades of the Nordic Choir’s history – intrigued by the special flavor of each era even as we came to see the strong ties that bound all of us together. . . our love of music, our love of singing, and our love for the man at the center of it all, the amazing and ageless Weston Noble.
pictured at the top: Some of us at the so-called Kids’ Table begin discussing what our presentation will be. Standing up at the head of the table is Mary Beth Petrak, the only official ’82 graduate in the alumni choir besides me. Also visible in the photo – roughly aligned with the pink sign on the table – is Robbyn (Welch) Wilk, one half of the cast of the Racine Theater Guild’s production of “I Do I Do.” (We sang in Nordic together, but she ended up leaving school during her sophomore year.) And sitting across from her is her brother Tim Welch, who I believe graduated two years before I did. He came all the way from Mexico where he now lives and directs his own community chorus.) Deb Burns and the aforementioned Jim Labelle are the only other alums from my three years in Nordic who are part of the alumni choir this year- but I hope that more will find it possible to part of this in the future. It’s a neat opportunity, and of course someday this window of opportunity will close forever – although I hope that day is still fairly far into the future.