Dr. Carl R. Youngdahl
In 1921, the president of Augustana College, Dr. Charles O. Solberg, hired a young and ambitious, thirty-four year-old man named Carl R. Youngdahl to teach in the music department. His new title was the Dean of the School of Music. His tasks were formidable, especially given the fact that Augustana College, although officially founded in 1860, was a new institution, still in the infancy of its merger with the Lutheran Normal School in Sioux Falls, SD. Shrouded by controversy over the merger and location of the new institution, Youngdahl's task was difficult. Youngdahl notes:
"In 1921, Augustana enrolled its first college class and in that same year I started my work there as Director of Music. I was given the task of building up a department of music, but it was also expected of me to develop the love of music throughout the whole student body, and to advertise the school through the medium of music. How this was to be done was my responsibility."
Faced with the daunting task of building a music department by recruiting students from an unhappy constituency, as well as helping the college gain trust and pride among these constituents, Youndahl pondered what role the music department played in the mending of these feelings. Youngdahl, endearing himself to the students almost immediately, began formulating ideas to aid the college, realizing that his challenges were multi-faceted. Erpestad notes "he immediately identified himself with the school and began to recognize its possibilities."
Youngdahl brought an impressive pedigree to Augustana. The second child born to Swedish immigrants John Carlton and Emma Youngdahl, Carl Reynold Youngdahl was born on 10 April 1887 in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, where his father owned and managed a hotel.
It was at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota that the ambitious and motivated Carl received the Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in music. His main instrument was the organ, but also played piano, clarinet, viola, and saxophone while a student at Gustavus. It was also during his time at Gustavus that Carl formulated dreams of teaching at a Lutheran college.
After his graduation from Gustavus Adolphus in 1909, he spent time in Minneapolis studying organ and was awarded an Associate's Degree from the American Guild of Organists in 1915. From 1915-17 he taught at the MacPhail School of Music, and Augsburg Seminary in Minneapolis. In 1917 he graduated from the Public School Music Course at the Northwestern Institute of Music in Minneapolis, after which he was the Dean of Music at the Lutheran Ladies' Seminary in Red Wing, Minnesota. He spent additional time studying at the University of Minnesota, and was a member of the faculty at his alma mater, Gustavus Adolphus College, in the years just prior to his arrival at Augustana.
Eileen Youngdahl Gunberg notes "my father's dream of teaching in a Lutheran college came true when Dr. [President] Solberg asked him to come to Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and start a music program. His new title was Dean of the Music School. This was the beginning of a thirty-two year appointment that lasted from 1921-1953, when Carl retired. He was also hired to be organist and choir director at First Lutheran Church in Sioux Falls-a position he also held for thirty-two years."
After his arrival at Augustana, he honored Dr. Solberg's determination to "build a well-trained professional faculty [,] with advanced degrees" , spending the summers from 1921-25 in graduate school, earning the Master of Music degree in 1923, and the Doctor of Music degree in 1925, both from The Chicago Musical College.
Among Youngdahl's most profound, and consequently most enduring, contributions to Augustana College was in his restructuring of the choral area, which resulted in what quickly became known as the Augustana College a cappella Choir. Youngdahl, in his unpublished history of the Augustana College Choir, he notes his philosophy behind the founding of the choir:
Dr. C. O. Solberg thought we might emulate Bethany College of Lindsborg, Kansas, and put on an annual Messiah Festival, but I felt that it would be far more important for us to get into the churches and the homes of the Lutheran people of our area. So the a cappella choir was born. We could travel lightly and easily since we required no instrumental accompaniment. We could appear in the smallest of our churches as well as the largest and our concert would be a sermon in song. If this were done well, with careful working out of all details, mechanical as well as interpretive, and done better than any other college in the area, and better than any church choir could do, then, we would have an advertising media that would eventually win over our constituency. This we set out to do and the enthusiastic support we received everywhere testified to our success.
Youngdahl led the Augustana Choir in its first public performance on 14 February 1922 in Brandon, South Dakota. His rigorous leadership took the choir on subsequent annual tours. Under his direction, the Augustana Choir appeared before the National Federation of Music Clubs on four different occasions-1927, 1929, 1933, and 1939 in Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis, and Baltimore respectively. The concert in Boston led the choir to critical acclaim on the East Coast, and further cultivated the seeds of the choir's reputation.
It was after the Boston performance that music critic, Charles E. Watt, called the Augustana Choir "admittedly one of the best ever developed in America", and called Youngdahl "an artist and musician of first rank." Youngdahl emphasized intellectual, musical, and spiritual training for his young singers. This philosophy was reflected in his programming, which included the music of J.S. Bach, Gretchaninoff, and the prolific writing of Lutheran composers after the reformation. Emil Erpestad, in his doctoral dissertation, expresses the manifestation of Youngdahl's philosophy:
There is possibly no student activity that has given clearer expression to the distinctive character of Augustana than its choir. In interpreting the great compositions of Palestrina and Bach, they have indicated their appreciation of their spiritual heritage and their continuity with the church of the ages. In their rendering of contemporary compositions, they have given expression to a faith that remains relevant in relation to the problems of the day. In their well-disciplined concentration, their standards of excellence, their loyalty to each of the directors who have guided them, and their exemplary conduct while on tour, they have revealed the integrating and motivating force of a sincere faith.
Biographical information courtesy of Greg Handel