Hurd — Sing to the Lord a new song [SATB + organ]

SATB + organ | Duration: approximately 4:30

Originally commissioned for the 64th Annual Christmas Festival of Lessons and Carols at Trinity College, Hartford, this brilliant setting of Psalm 96 brings celebratory energy and golden sonority to a familiar text. Dr. Hurd's music is bright and festive, with the organ providing a luminous foundation for the choir's joyful proclamation. While perfectly suited to Christmas use, the work's character and text make it equally appropriate for general celebrations throughout the year—festivals, dedications, or any occasion calling for exuberant praise. The writing is idiomatic for both choir and organ, with Dr. Hurd's characteristic harmonic richness in service of the psalm's call to "sing to the Lord a new song."

Dr. DAVID HURD (b. 1950) is a native New Yorker and has studied at the Juilliard School, the High School of Music and Art, and the Manhattan School of Music. His undergraduate music degree is from Oberlin College, and he continued his studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Subsequently he has received honorary degrees from four other academic institutions. From 1976 until 2015, he was on the faculty of The General Theological Seminary, having been named Professor of Church Music and Organist there in 1984. He has taught also at Duke University, Manhattan School of Music, Westminster Choir College, and Yale University. A lifelong Episcopalian, he served on the Standing Commission on Church Music from 1977 to 1986 and was a major contributor to The Hymnal 1982. Since winning first prizes both in organ performance and in improvisation at the 1977 International Congress of Organists, he has performed extensively throughout North America and Europe, and has been a featured artist at several national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists. His catalogue of published musical compositions features choral, vocal, liturgical, and organ works, and includes a collection of seventy-seven original hymn settings. In 2010 he became the sixteenth recipient of The American Guild of Organists’ Distinguished Composer Award. He was appointed Organist and Music Director of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in 2016 having previously served in New York at Trinity Church Wall Street (and Saint Paul’s Chapel), The Church of the Intercession, Saint James Church, All Saints Church, and Church of the Holy Apostles.