Lee Hoiby was an American composer and pianist, born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1926, who studied at the University of Wisconsin, Mills College, and the Curtis Institute of Music before establishing his career in New York City. He was best known as a composer of operas and art songs, his output including the opera Summer and Smoke, choral works, and orchestral compositions, many written in a lyrical, tonal idiom influenced by his teacher Gian Carlo Menotti. He died in New York City in 2011 of metastatic melanoma, aged 85.

Hoiby championed melodic, tonal composition at a time when modernist aesthetics dominated American concert music, and his art songs—admired and performed by soprano Leontyne Price—along with his opera Summer and Smoke remain his most recognized contributions. His work is valued today as a lyrical counterpoint to twentieth-century modernism, particularly within American vocal and operatic repertoire.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Hoiby