Sisters Are Life Partners, Too

2-part treble choir and piano

“Sisters are Life Partners, Too” is taken from the opera The Song Poet by librettist Kao Kalia Yang and composer Jocelyn Hagen. It was commissioned by Minnesota Opera and premiered in March 2023. The Song Poet is the first Hmong story to be adapted for the operatic stage, and it is based on Kao Kalia Yang’s much acclaimed 2017 memoir of a Hmong family’s desperate escape from the war-torn mountains of Laos into a Thai refugee camp and ultimately to a challenging life as refugees in the United States. Kalia and her sister Dawb share a special bond. This song, near the end of the opera, gives them a chance to share their dreams and fears for the future, under the weight of their parents expectations. It is recommended to read the spoken lines with the piano accompaniment, as written, to give the audience more context for the song. There is one line that is repeated in the Hmong language several times: Viv ncaus thiab yog khub ua neej thiab. Go to GraphitePublishing.com to listen to a recording of this text being spoken and sung. The Hmong melodic lines throughout the opera were composed by Bee Yang (Kalia’s father, the song poet) and transcribed by Jocelyn Hagen.

Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong American teacher, speaker, and writer. Her work crosses audiences and genres. She is the award-winning author of the memoirs, The Latehomecomer, The Song Poet, Somewhere in the Unknown World, and Where Rivers Part. Yang’s work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the PEN USA literary awards, the Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize, as Notable Books by the American Library Association, Kirkus Best Books of the Year, the Heartland Bookseller’s Award, and garnered four Minnesota Book Awards. Yang is McKnight, Soros, and Guggenheim fellow.