“How can I keep from singing?”

Howard Don Small (1932-2007)

Canon Musician Emeritus of St. Mark's Cathedral

by Susan Barksdale

Worship is many things to many people, but for many the making of music for the glory of God is not a part of our worship, but it is our worship. For decades, Howard Don Small made such worship possible for scores of musicians. For 27 years, he was formally the organist-choirmaster at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark, but he could also have been called a pastor for worshipping musicians there and around the diocese. On Friday, July 13, 2007, Don passed away from us to join the choirs of heaven.

Don Small was mentor and friend to scores of church musicians. Those he taught and helped now serve on organ benches in churches and cathedrals throughout the country. He was unselfish in giving young musicians the chance to try their wings.

One of the many of these is Monte Mason, who asked Don more than three decades ago if he might offer a monthly Compline service at St. Mark’s with a small men’s chant group. Some time later, Don asked Monte if he would like to create an Advent service for his group to present annually at the cathedral. The rest, as they say, is history. The Gregorian Singers, now a larger mixed choir and in residence at St. Paul’s on-the-Hill in St. Paul, begins its 35th season this fall. Mason speaks of the years at St. Mark’s as “a fun time, with lots of collegiality and respect” and is grateful for the opportunity that Don Small gave him there. “I grew the way I needed to,” he says.

A life of professional achievement
Howard Don Small was born in Selma, Alabama, on December 7, 1932. He held BM and MM degrees in organ performance from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Before coming to Minnesota in 1971 (where he succeeded famed Canadian organist Gerald Bales at St. Mark’s), he taught at Albion College in Michigan, and held church music positions in La Jolla and San Diego, California.

Under Don’s leadership, the St. Mark’s Music Series presented concerts featuring the Cathedral Choir and other choral ensembles, plus guest artists from around the world. The Cathedral Choir made one LP and four CDs under his direction. One of these was of a mammoth commissioned work by the late William Albright — A Song to David, to a text by Christopher Smart — which had its world premiere at St. Mark’s in 1983.

When the national convention of the American Guild of Organists (AGO) was held in the Twin Cities in 1980, Don was the general chairman. “With the choir from Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, in residence for the week, it set a new standard for such conventions,” says James Frazier, Music Director at St. John the Evangelist in St. Paul.

Don’s music ministry was not always on such a grandiose scale. He also offered the cathedral as a venue for smaller parish choirs to sing Evensongs, generally inviting them in groups of two or three choirs in combination. He began the Cathedral Choral Society, which offered singers from area churches and the community the opportunity to prepare and perform large works that they might otherwise have had no chance to sing. Much of the music he commissioned was from area musicians, and he was always willing to examine and perform compositions from choir members. Although not the youth choir director at St. Mark’s, he nevertheless was aware of the talents of the cathedral’s children, often giving younger singers (including the daughter of this writer) the chance for solos in Sunday services.

Don was named Canon Musician of the St. Mark’s Cathedral in 1989 — at that time the first lay canon in the Diocese of Minnesota since the time of Bishop Whipple — and was made Canon Musician Emeritus in 2003. In 1996, the new organ console at the cathedral was named in his honor. Several of his harmonizations of service music appear in The Hymnal 1982, and a few of his many choral compositions have been published by Oxford University Press.

“To be part of his instrument was glorious”
While reading a list of achievements may be impressive, the real impact of Don Small’s ministry is heard in the words of those who were touched by it. Here are only a few.

“Working with him had a profound effect on me as a musician,” says former choir member Hal Grotevant. “First, his focus was always on the inextricable connection between music and worship. Choirs were not in church to perform. They were there to be an integral part of worship. That always took precedence. . . . Second, he expected and received excellence from everyone — the very best we could possibly give, every time. In turn, he gave the same himself. Singing under his direction gave me the encouragement to keep trying and stretching. Third, he valued and supported community. The annual overnight choir retreats were truly bonding experiences for all, and he and Emma frequently opened their home for parties and celebrations.”

“I loved singing for him,” says Haddayr Copley-Woods. “He stood in front of us every Sunday with his face lit up with joy to hear us; he was a subtle conductor, but often in his own way: head tilted, body swaying, would dance in our sound. To be part of his instrument was glorious.”

On a personal note
Although Don Small and I came to Minnesota in the same year, our paths did not cross until a few years later, when I walked into St. Mark’s on a Sunday morning in the spring, blithely unaware of the ministry that was in store for me for the next 20-plus years.

And what a ministry it was! We toiled, laughed, cried, prayed, argued a bit, and offered up our best to honor our Creator. I can no longer imagine sitting anyplace in church other than next to the console, passing hymnals, turning pages, and, above all, singing to the glory of God — in fact, I don’t think I should have any idea of what to do if I found myself in a “regular” pew.

Evangelism can take many forms. What Don (and Emma!) Small did at St. Mark’s was outreach of the most gracious and generous kind — a true “giving up of themselves to God’s service.”

It was once said that the pews at St. Mark’s were full of people who have “sought music and found God.” And it is true. Almost every year the line of those being confirmed or received includes choir members or other musicians. I joined that line in 1979 and have never regretted it.

Postlude
Following Don Small’s retirement from St. Mark’s, he served for a time as organist at St. John the Evangelist in St. Paul. In his final years, he was organist and choirmaster at Joyce United Methodist Church, near Calhoun Square in Minneapolis, where he was welcomed with joy — and gave it back as well. In fact, the very last thing he played on the organ, a day or two before he went into the hospital, was his own improvisation on the beloved Beethoven hymn “Ode to Joy” — a fitting finale to a life of praise.

J. Michael Barone, host of National Public Radio’s Pipe Dreams, sent this message on learning of Don Small’s passing:

“He was a patrician musician and a significant contributor of the highest quality to our community musical culture. Perhaps his memorial could be the words of Christopher Smart in the last hymn from the Bill Albright cantata [A Song to David] that Don commissioned and premiered:
        Thou at stupendous truth believ’d;
        And now the matchless deed’s achiev’d,
        DETERMIN’D, DAR’D, AND DONE.

“I'd say ‘R.I.P., Don!’ but I wonder whether he might not prefer to be in the midst of a heavenly joyful noise....”

Howard Don Small is survived by his wife Emma, a respected Twin Cities voice teacher; their daughter Margaret; and his beloved dog Angel. A memorial service will be held at St. Mark’s Cathedral on Thursday, August 9, at 4:00 pm. You can be sure that it will be full of hymns of grateful praise!

For those who may want to read more, a Web site has been set up for tributes and memories at www.res-miranda.com/HDS1.html.