Dr. Bird, a native of Kansas, has long been recognized as a distinguished composer and educator. He holds degrees from Missouri Southern University, Pittsburg State University, and the College of Music, University of Colorado at Boulder. He has won the Ithaca College Choral Composition Prize four times, the Roger Wagner Award for Excellence in Choral Composition, and several ASCAP awards, among many others. The New Hampshire legislature named him Outstanding Artist of the State, and the New Hampshire Arts Council presented him with the Governor’s Artist Recognition Award. He is a resident fellow of the famed MacDowell Colony.

His many commissions include works for churches, schools, colleges, and professional organizations, and most recently the United States Army Band in Washington D. C., Providence College of Rhode Island, and Ecuador’s National Symphony.

Alleluia (SATB a cappella) by Hubert Bird was written in 1999 partially in celebration of the 900th birthday of the medieval composer and poet, the Abbess Hildegard von Bingen. The Alleluia is based on a phrase of a chant by the Abbess. The work itself is constructed in such a manner as to give all sections of the chorus an opportunity to perform the main theme at least once. The work is intentionally cast with a tonal center in “d” to allow connecting it directly to Randall Thompson’s famous work of the same title. When used in this manner, either work can be placed first or second, one preceding or following the other.

View Alleluia as a PDF file.