Gene Scheer is a frequent collaborator with composer Jake Heggie, with three of their works making their world premieres at HGO: It’s a Wonderful Life (2016), Three Decembers, which starred Frederica von Stade (2008); and the song cycle Pieces of 9/11 (2011). The two also collaborated on the critically acclaimed 2010 Dallas Opera world premiere Moby-Dick, starring Ben Heppner as Captain Ahab; the lyric drama To Hell and Back (Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra), which featured Patti LuPone; and Camille Claudel: Into the Fire, a song cycle premiered by Joyce DiDonato and the Alexander String Quartet. Scheer worked as librettist with Tobias Picker on An American Tragedy, which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 2005. Their first opera, Therese Raquin, written for the Dallas Opera in 2001, was cited by Opera News as one of the ten best recordings of 2002. Other collaborations include the lyrics for Wynton Marsalis’s “It Never Goes Away,” featured in Congo Square; the Grammy-nominated oratorio August 4, 1964, with composer Steven Stucky; the opera Everest with composer Joby Talbot, premiered by the Dallas Opera in 2015; and the opera Cold Mountain with composer Jennifer Higdon, premiered by the Santa Fe Opera in 2015 (International Opera Award for Best World Premiere in 2015). Also a composer, Scheer has written a number of songs for singers such as Renée Fleming, Sylvia McNair, Stephanie Blythe, Jennifer Larmore, Denyce Graves, and Nathan Gunn. Scheer’s song “American Anthem,” sung by Norah Jones, was featured in Ken Burns’s Emmy Award-winning documentary The War.