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SHDHS Chorus / Chamber Choir
The Chamber Choir is proud to release "Touched by Grace", featuring David Haas.
Eileen Bird - eibird@shdhs.org - Chorus / Chamber Choir / Music Appreciation / Director
Bachelor of Arts in Music, Flute Performance, The College of Mount St. Joseph
Mrs. Bird is the director of our School Chorus, Chamber Choir, and Liturgical Music Ministry. She also teaches Music Appreciation. She plays the flute, keyboard and organ as a performer and musician for a variety of National Association of Pastoral Musicians workshops and events, and was the Instrumental Track and Workshop Leader for the 2004 NPM Guitar and Ensemble Institute. She served as Director of Liturgical Music at Mary Queen of Heaven School for ten years, and has been a team member of Music Ministry Alive! for six years, taking SHDHS students to the annual Liturgy and Music Institute for Youth held annually in St. Paul Minnesota.
Eileen is also a talented studio musician, recording since 1997 with Liturgical Composer and Recording Artist David Haas and a variety of other GIA artists including Bobby Fisher, Stephen Petrunak, Paul Tate, and Lori True. She has traveled extensively to Israel, as well as to Hilo, Hawaii for BILAC (Big Island Liturgy and Arts Conference). Her extensive experience in a variety of school and community orchestral, band and choral programs has been a true blessing for the Crusaders, who have traveled with Mrs. Bird on the SHDHS Chamber Choir Tour and Performance in Italy. In December 2002, our students traveled to Rome, Assisi, Florence and Milan, performing in concert in St. Ignatius Church in Rome, singing as the principle choir for Saturday liturgy at St. Peter’s Basilica, and participating in the music for the January 1st, 2003 Papal Mass at St. Peter’s with Pope John Paul II. During December 2005, the Chamber Choir returned to Italy, and visited Padua, Venice, Udine, Ravenna, Florence, Assisi, and Rome. Included among many other sites they will visit are the duomo (cathedral) and Piazza San Marco and Doges’ Palace in Venice; Michelangelo’s ‘David’, the Ponte Vecchio and the Cathedral and Baptistry in Florence; the town of Assisi; St. Peter’s Basilica, the Coliseum, Trevi Fountain, The Vatican Museum, and the Sistine Chapel. The Chamber Choir also performed in concert in Udine and was the principle choir for an evening mass at St. Peter’s Basilica.
Our School Chorus and Chamber Choir programs feature both girls and boys, and both perform at many events in Northern Kentucky throughout the year.
Student Highlight:
Being a part of the Chamber Choir at St. Henry is a privilege and an amazing opportunity. Led by Eileen Bird, the choir consists of a group of dedicated, talented and passionate students who have auditioned, been accepted, and live their day to day lives viewing music as not only a personal enjoyment and skill but also a ministry employed to serve the community. While most classes are work oriented, Chamber Choir is performance/service oriented. The choir sings together for concerts, weddings, funerals, memorials, all school masses and anywhere else needed. The Chamber Choir has gone out of the country to sing together in places such as Venice, Rome, Florence and Assisi and will soon be traveling to Ireland in December of 2009. In order to obtain the funds needed to make pilgrimages to these places, the Chamber Choir produces a cd and goes from church to church to sing and allow people of the diocese to give us financial and spiritual assistance. The Chamber Choir teaches the fundamentals of music such as breathing, sight reading and singing in a unified manner or, as Mrs. Bird says, "like a choir". But, unlike many other classes, Chamber Choir also teaches the concept of family. By combining the opportunity for spiritual, musical and personal growth, the Chamber Choir at St. Henry is an experience unlike any other.
Chelsea Gabbard ('10)
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