Composer Hayes Biggs has taught at Manhattan School of Music since 1992. Some of his awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a residency at Copland House, and a Fromm Foundation Commission. He also has been, since 2010, a member of the bass section of C4: The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective.
His most recent works include who are you? for SSAA chorus (poem by Zsuzsanna Ardó); Through to (and Out of) the Other Side, for The Megalopolis Saxophone Orchestra; Reveries. Passions, a quartet for piano and strings; Be Gentle And Kind With Your Wandering Mind, for alto saxophone and piano; and O Oriens/Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, for SSAATTBB choir a cappella. His String Quartet: O Sapientia/Steal Away, recorded by the Avalon String Quartet, is available on Albany Records, and his album When You Are Reminded By the Instruments was released on Navona Records in 2018.
At MacDowell in 2005, Biggs worked on Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, a religious poetry song cycle for soprano Susan Narucki. In 2010, Biggs completed the third of three preludes on hymn tunes, commissioned by organist Gail Archers, and worked on a song cycle on religious poetry and a quintet for piano and strings. During his 2023 residency, he made progress on a setting of John Keats’s The Eve of St. Agnes, for solo voices, chorus, and chamber orchestra.
