George Kirbye

George Kirbye (c. 1565 – buried 6 October 1634) was an English composer of the late Tudor period and early Jacobean era.

He worked at Rushbrooke Hall near Bury St Edmunds, evidently as a tutor to the daughters of Sir Robert Jermyn.

Around this time he probably made the acquaintance of John Wilbye, a much more famous madrigalist, who lived and worked only a few miles away, and whose style he sometimes approaches.

Kirbye's most significant musical contributions were the psalm settings he wrote for East's psalter, The Whole Book of Psalmes (1592), the madrigals he wrote for the Triumphs of Oriana (1601), the famous collection dedicated to Elizabeth I, and an independent set of madrigals published in 1597.

Kirbye was employed by East to arrange tunes featured in his psalter, and it is his arrangement, with the melody in the tenor, of Tye's melody to accompany Psalm 84 "How Lovely is Thy Dwelling Place" which is today sung to While Shepherds watched their flocks by night.