Hearing the familiar Christmas music playing in the lobby of an apartment building, I thought this holiday season would be little more than Christmas as usual. Then my supervisor here in the NLS Music Section told me about Bree Noble. Later my wife Lisa found several of her albums, as well as information about this singer-songwriter.
A little research revealed that Bree Noble has glaucoma and has been legally blind since birth. As a teenager she attended Thomas Downy High School in Modesto, then Westmont College in Santa Barbara, receiving degrees in business and vocal performance.
Bree worked as a director of finance at an opera company, but quit this job in order to develop her own talents, and to spend more time with her two children. She founded and directed Women of Substance Music Radio and Podcast to promote female artists.
As a singer she has produced three albums, and once sang the National Anthem in front of 60,000 people at Dodgers Stadium. In 2007 she founded an online radio station called Women of Substance Radio, which lasted for ten years.
The songs she has written and performed include “Gypsy Road”, “My Front Door”, “It’s Christmas Time”, “Running”, and “You Are My Vision.” In 2006 she created a presentation entitled “You Are My Vision,” to describe what it was like to grow up visually impaired. Her first album, Overwhelmed, was released in 2002. Another CD, Healing Waters, appeared in 2006, and In the Garden in 2011. 2011 was also the year when she released her Christmas album, with such songs as “It’s Christmas Time,” “Heaven Came to Earth,” “Wide Awake on Christmas Eve,” as well as familiar carols such as “Silent Night.”
I listened to the Christmas album, Gift Beneath the Stars: “Now it’s the 24th day of December, and the children just can’t get to sleep.” Ah, I remember a Christmas like that when I was nine years old. In another song I heard, “Wise men still come, and they still see / The greatest gift we ever will receive.” What a special thing it is to hear both secular and sacred from the same artist.
Below are some songs that Bree Noble has performed. Just contact the Music Section at NLS if you would like to borrow any of these works:
“The Lord’s Prayer,” by Malotte, BRM27202, LPM00530.
“In the Garden,” in The Evangel Hymnbook, BRM28733. Also in Favorite Hymns, LPM00646.
“Think of Me,” from The Phantom of the Opera, BRM22782 or BRM32033.
“Oh Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion,” from Handel’s Messiah:
in “The Do It Yourself Messiah”, Alto (DBM01469),
Also in Anthology of Sacred Song (BRM30513),
And in Messiah (BRM35422), Vol. 3, Alto.
“Agnus Dei,” from Mozart’s “Coronation” Mass, K. 317, in BRM05208.