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Interesting Facts 2: Prokofiev

A Minute with Miles
Mary Noble Ours
/
SC Public Radio

Sergey Prokofiev was a giant of 20th-century composition. He wrote great symphonies, operas, ballets, concertos, piano sonatas, and chamber music pieces, not to mention Peter and the Wolf.

Some things you may not know: Prokofiev visited America a number of times, and his concerts here were extremely successful. His opera The Love for Three Oranges was premiered in Chicago, and he met his first wife, the soprano Lina Llubera, in New York City. The Prokofiev's lived in Paris in the 1920's and 30's, but they later returned to the Soviet Union, where I’m afraid their marriage fell apart. For some reason Lina was later arrested, and she spent eight years in a Soviet gulag. Prokofiev died a world-famous composer, but his death was overshadowed in the newspapers by the death of another man who died the same day: Josef Stalin.

A Minute with Miles – a production of South Carolina Public Radio, made possible by the J.M. Smith Corporation.

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Miles Hoffman is the founder and violist of the American Chamber Players, with whom he regularly tours the United States, and the Virginia I. Norman Distinguished Visiting Professor of Chamber Music at the Schwob School of Music, in Columbus, Georgia. He has appeared as viola soloist with orchestras across the country, and his solo performances on YouTube have received well over 700,000 views.