X-Nico

Lee Hoiby

Hoiby wrote Last Letter Home in 2006 to the words of U.S. PFC Jesse Givens, who died in an accident while serving in Iraq.

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Elements of this song were used as source material for the opera’s remaining solo and ensemble music, written by composer Stefan Weisman.

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Among Hoiby's other operatic works are the one-act opera buffa Something New for the Zoo (1979), the musical monologue The Italian Lesson (1981, text by Ruth Draper) which was produced off-Broadway in 1989 with Jean Stapleton, The Tempest (1986), and a one-act chamber opera, This Is the Rill Speaking (1992), text by Lanford Wilson.

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Indeed, some of his most important works are in that form, including the Christmas cantata A Hymn of the Nativity (text by Richard Crashaw), the oratorio Galileo Galilei (libretto by Barrie Stavis), and a substantial group of works for chorus and orchestra on texts of Walt Whitman.

see also