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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Herb Severtsen’s world filled with family, music


Herb and Billie Severtsen in Seattle celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary in 2006.Photos courtesy of family
 (Photo courtesy of family / The Spokesman-Review)
Holly K. Sonneland The Spokesman-Review

Most of us would resent being reduced to two words. Herb Severtsen, however, would have taken it as a compliment.

“His whole life was music and his family,” says his wife, Billie. Severtsen, who died Oct. 1 after serving for more than 30 years as an organ and piano player and tuner in Spokane, pursued those two things consummately. He was 77.

Severtsen was born in 1930 in New York City to Norwegian immigrants. Diagnosed with congenital glaucoma at an early age, he was sent to the New York Institute for the Blind, a boarding school a mile away from home, although he did not go fully blind until adulthood.

One evening, a 6-year old Herb worried people when he did not show up to dinner. Eventually they found him tinkering around on one of the school’s pianos, unaware of the time. “And it became his thing,” says Billie.

Severtsen continued to pursue his talents at the Institute. From there, he went on to Bard College, where he got his degree, and later to Columbia University, where he earned a master’s degree in music.

Herb and Billie met in early 1960s when she joined the choir at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Chelsea in New York City, where he was the organist and choirmaster. They soon discovered that their talents, as well as their personalities, were complementary, a collaboration of sorts. She was the technician; he was the artist. He often forgot lyrics and melodies, but was a genius at improvisation; she could sight-read, memorized songs easily and had perfect pitch.

They dated for a few years, their dates often involving dinner and walking through Manhattan, exploring its “quirky” troves.

They married in 1966, despite disapproving parents on both sides, and remained in New York City. In the early years, Severtsen developed his musical tastes through conversation with fellow organists who would come over to the Severtsens for dinner and discussions on music. Billie said they had “enormous respect” for him, his insights and the tastes he cultivated.

The fact that he was even a member of such a group, says his longtime colleague and music director at St. John’s in Spokane, Janet Ahrend, attested to his talent. “He was at the top of the heap,” says Ahrend of Severtsen to have been working in Manhattan then, “the cream of the crop.”

Over the next decade, the family grew – ultimately to include five children – and moved west, ending up in Billie’s hometown Spokane.

His children describe their father as devoted, conscientious, kind, mellow, accepting, supportive, observant and cheerful. He made breakfast and squeezed orange juice for the kids before they went off to school. And he always made sure that whoever was going on a date would have money.

The family was close: they had candlelight dinners together every night at 6, and sang Christmas carols every Advent Sunday. Everyone in the family shared the cooking responsibilities – there was a marked lack of junk food in the house – and it was Severtsen who taught his daughter Ani, adopted from India at age 11 and blind herself, how to cook rice “tactilely.” And when she later went to college, Severtsen, who knew she had a hard time getting up in the morning, would call her and sing her a wake-up call, simple tunes and lyrics he’d make up.

While Severtsen focused primarily on jazz improvisation and church organ when he played, he liked all genres (with the exception of folk), as long as it qualified as “good music.” He rarely enumerated his criteria for that qualification, but rather relied on an innate sense of aesthetic, offering either “It’s good” or “That’s crap” by way of review. He liked the music of George Shearing; Duke Ellington, who lived down the hall in their New York City apartment building; and Ray Charles, although he was embarrassed by comparisons to the other blind keyboardist. Ralph Vaughn Williams was one of his favorite English church music composers, and J.S. Bach was “an idol” to Severtsen, who always made sure to oil St. John’s organ every year on the German composer’s birthday.

He liked Handel as well, but thought the Messiah was “overdone.” He thought the musical “Cats!” was “terrible,” and, although he appreciated Pachelbel’s other works, detested the Canon in D. One time even, Ahrend recalls the church and purchased the sheet music for Billie, an accomplished pianist herself, to play for a wedding, but the music mysteriously disappeared. While the two teasingly accused Herb of hiding it, Billie indeed found the music stowed away in a drawer a few weeks after his death.

He had the enviable balance of being a keen adjudicator, but never the harsh critic. He was quietly cynical, says Billie, and would often slip in his own commentary with his song selections during the service’s musical response, playing “How Much is that Doggie in the Window?” or “Hold that Tiger” at the St. John’s pet blessing, for instance. “He was always quick to point out if I was dating someone with bad grammar or someone who didn’t speak well,” says Rebecca, the family’s eldest, but “slyly not in a rude way.”

Even listening to the radio – always KPBX – was an active pursuit; he would regularly call producers and DJs at the station and discuss the themes of the day’s program. Ahrend, too, said he would call her and discuss rehearsals and performances at St. John’s, but never failed to end with, “You’re doing a good job.”

Ultimately, though, Billie says his interest was making, and not consuming, music. He composed pieces regularly and wrote intricate pieces for various church services, his children’s weddings, and one piece remembered by all as particularly evocative for his granddaughter Sarah’s baptismal ceremony.

His wife says, “He saw life as something to make beautiful with your artistry.”