Dr. Paul Benjamin Noble, Jr.
April 6, 1935 – August 19, 2025
Dr. Paul Benjamin Noble, Jr. of Smith Mountain Lake, died on August 19, 2025 at age 90.
He is survived by his beloved wife of 68 years, The Rev. Mitzi McAlexander Noble, two sons: Michael Buren Noble of Middletown, VA and his children, Nicole, Erica and Shawn, and James Benjamin Noble of Frederick, MD and his son Jackson; and five great-grandchildren.
Funeral arrangements are by Flora Funeral Service. The service for Christian Burial will be at Trinity Ecumenical Parish, 40 Lakemount Drive, Smith Mountain Lake, Moneta, VA 24121 on Saturday, August 23 at 3:00 p.m., with entombment in Mountain View Memorial Park, 5970 Grassy Hill Rd, Boones Mill, VA.
A native Virginian, Dr. Noble spent much of his life in Virginia. Born in Hopewell on April 6, 1935, the family moved to Roanoke when he was five years old. Graduating from Andrew Lewis High School in 1952, he attended Shenandoah Conservatory of Music, then in Dayton, VA, where he graduated in 1956 with a Bachelor of Music Education degree. He began his teaching career at Cave Spring High School when it was first opened, and being one of the first teachers hired, was on the committee to select the school mascot and colors and design the band uniforms and choir robes. He developed an award-winning band that was selected to represent the Commonwealth of Virginia Lions Clubs at their International Convention in Nice, France in 1962. This was very early in the days of bands traveling on extended tours abroad. The band performed concerts throughout England and Western Europe, including a jaunt through then East Germany and into the divided city of Berlin.
With summer and evening graduate study at the universities of Virginia and Michigan, in 1963 he was appointed graduate assistant in the Band Department of Indiana University while completing his master’s degree and doctoral coursework. He was assistant conductor of the wind ensemble and marching band under Dr. Ronald Gregory and was conductor of the concert band and two ROTC bands. Dr. Noble was awarded honorary life membership in both Phi Mu Alpha and Kappa Kappa Psi fraternities. He later completed the doctoral degree in 1974 from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
In 1965 he joined the faculty of his alma mater, Shenandoah Conservatory of Music (now Shenandoah University) in Winchester, Virginia, where he became Associate Professor, Director of Bands and Chair of the Instrumental Music Department. During his tenure the student enrollment in the music department grew from 90 to over 500 music majors. Many of his former students have become professional performers and in top positions at educational institutions across the country.
While on the European tour with the Cave Spring High School Band, a U. S. Ambassador to Italy encouraged Noble to continue the tours with the best of American students because it was the ‘best propaganda’ to display American youth and the qualities of music in public schools. That was the seed that, in 1965, began the annual summer concert tours of the All-Student Band, U.S.A., later to include choruses, orchestra and jazz groups, with students selected by audition from throughout the U.S. This organization performed a command performance for Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco and received a Resolution of Commendation from the U.S. Congress.
After several European tours, numerous band directors solicited the assistance from the Nobles’ travel expertise to the point that, with his wife, Mitzi, heading a staff of assistants, they formed Educational Tour Consultants, Inc. to plan and conduct group tours around the world.
In 1976, Governor Mills Godwin of Virginia appointed Dr. Noble to form the Official Virginia Bicentennial Band and Marching Chorus, 500 members from the best students across the state. The group participated in various events of the nation’s Bicentennial Celebration, including performing for the visit of Queen Elizabeth II in Virginia.
With the business expanding, in 1976 Noble decided to devote full time to the travel business, creating both retail and group travel departments, employing up to 40 people, Together they created music festival opportunities around the world; was the founder of the high school division of the Montreux Jazz Festival; and created Homestays International, a division of their group department focusing on providing inexpensive travel accommodations through free exchange homestays for groups around the world. The Christian Children’s Fund (now Child Fund) engaged them to provide group tours for sponsors to visit their sponsored children in nine developing countries. Domestically, they produced music festivals for Six Flags Amusement Parks across the U.S., and with this developed adjudication forms and standards that have had a lasting impact on music education and festival standards in America.
In the mid-1980s, Mitzi Noble pursued ordination to the Episcopal priesthood, finishing her Master of Divinity degree at The General Theological Seminary in New York City. From there, Paul followed her career as Mitzi served as priest in Long Island, Connecticut, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. While in Connecticut, Paul conducted a civic orchestra, and in Maryland he conducted the Montgomery College Wind Ensemble for seven years. Throughout this time his creative imagination focused on various forms of art, including several oil portraits now hanging in New York City, watercolors, pen and inks, and large stained glass windows in Connecticut, Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Jamaica. Musically, his arrangement of Johan Halvorsen’s “Masquerade Suite” was premiered by the U.S. Navy Band in Washington, D.C., and he arranged and conducted commercial CD recordings for tenor Doug Jimerson.
After retiring to Smith Mountain Lake in 2006, Noble focused his creative energy to arranging music for concert/wind bands. Believing that the future of publication lies in the computer, he developed his website, Bandmusicpdf.net, where over 250 of his arrangements are available to bands around the world. He worked very closely with Oxford University Press, being named “A licensed edition publishing partner”, and his music is available not only through his website, but also through various distributors around the world. Over 100 of his arrangements are compositions by the famous British composer John Rutter, with many other arrangements of the music of British composers William Walton, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, Gordon Jacob, Philip Lane, Sir David Willcocks, Gordon Thornett, David Lyon and numerous others. In 2012 his on-line publishing company was elected to membership in the prestigious American Bandmasters Association, and he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award for Lifetime Achievement from Shenandoah University. Noble’s significant legacy as an arranger will be continued through his Trust, and his arrangements will continue to be available around the world.
With his close relationship to Shenandoah Conservatory of Music, Dr. Noble has requested, in lieu of flowers, that donations in his memory may be sent to Shenandoah University.
Arrangements by Flora Funeral Service and Cremation Center, Rocky Mount/Smith Mountain Lake.
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