Hibbard, William
Dates
- Existence: 1939-1989
Biography
William Alden Hibbard was a prominent composer, musician, and music professor at the University of Iowa. Born on August 8, 1939, in Newton, Massachusetts, he displayed an early aptitude for music - while still in junior high school, Hibbard began taking music composition lessons from Francis Judd Cooke at the New England Conservatory of Music. He went on to attend the Conservatory as an undergraduate, and was graduated with a B.M. with Highest Honors in Violin in 1961. He obtained his Masters, in Composition, from the Conservatory in 1963. Hibbard arrived at the University of Iowa in 1964 as a doctoral student in Composition; he received his PhD from the School of Music in 1967. He joined the School of Music faculty, Composition and Theory section, in 1966. He was made a full professor in 1977, and was appointed head of the section in 1987. During his tenure at UI, the focus of Hibbard's activity - both as a performer and as a composer - was the Center for New Music, UI's professional new music ensemble which Hibbard co-founded (together with Richard Hervig, then head of Composition and Theory) in 1966. The Center was created through joint funding from UI and a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and was the first program west of the Mississippi devoted to the performance of new music. Hibbard served as the Center's Music Director from 1966 until 1988. Hibbard summed up the mission of the Center by saying, ""We exist to serve composition through performance. It's that simple."" During Hibbard's tenure at the Center, its members performed more than 200 concerts, made numerous tours of Iowa and the Midwest, and attended national music festivals. The Center attained a national reputation, and in 1986 won the Commendation of Excellence from Broadcast Music, Inc. (only the second ensemble to win the award). The American Composers Alliance awarded the Center its Laurel Leaf Award ""in memoriam William Hibbard"" in 1990. Hibbard also served as the Director of UI's Center for New Performing Arts, an interdisciplinary arts project funded, like the CNM, jointly by UI and the Rockefeller Foundation. He served in this position from 1969-1976. As a performer, Hibbard was Principal Violist of the Quad City Symphony (James Dixon, Music Director) from 1984-1988. He was also the founding Director of the Iowa City Community String Orchestra, which he directed from 1980-1986. As a composer, he wrote more than 40 different works, for orchestra, for chamber/ensemble, for solo instruments, and for voice. His awards and honors were numerous, including the G.W. Chadwick Medal from the New England Conservatory of Music (1961), the UI Philip Greeley Clapp Award (1967), the American Film Institute Prize for Girl On A Landscape (1968), and the New England Conservatory's Distinguished Alumnus Award (1988). Hibbard's 1974 composition Menage for Soprano, Trumpet and Violin was selected as one of five American works to be submitted for the 1977 International Society of Contemporary Music Festival in Bonn, Germany. William Hibbard died of AIDS in San Francisco, California, at the age of 49 on April 5, 1989. "