Read LA Times review of
West Coast premiere at Disney Hall
The Los Angeles Master Chorale and
the Bang on a Can All-Stars
April 16, 2016
The Royal Library of Denmark, Copenhagen
click here to stream the music
click here for the full album
“[Anthracite Fields] captures not only the sadness of hard lives lost…but also of the sweetness and passion of a way of daily life now also lost…
Read MoreJulia Wolfe’s, Anthracite Fields, her Pulitzer prize-winning oratorio for chorus and amplified ensemble, has received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.
Click here to listen to an NPR feature on Anthracite Fields.
Wolfe wrote the work after doing extensive research about the coal-mining industry in an area very near where she grew up in Pennsylvania. Her text draws on oral histories, interviews with miners and their families, speeches, geographic descriptions, children’s rhymes, and coal advertisements…
Read MoreOn November 14, Julia Wolfe returns to the anthracite coal region in Pennsylvania, which inspired her Pulitzer prize-winning oratorio, Anthracite Fields. In order to share the piece with the community that gave her such invaluable assistance in her research, Wolfe will participate in tours of the Lackawanna Coal Mine and give a talk at the Anthracite Heritage Museum in Scranton. That evening, the Bang on a Can All-Stars and the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, conducted by Julian Wachner, will perform Anthracite Fields at the brand-new Allan P…
Read MoreSteel Hammer
After a superb premiere at The Krannert Center in Urbana-Champaign, IL, the staging of Julia Wolfe’s Steel Hammer by director Anne Bogart and her SITI Company with the Bang on a Can All-Stars goes on tour beginning October 23, with a final performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December!
Steel Hammer
staged by Anne Bogart with SITI Company;
Bang on a Can All-Stars
• UCLA: 10/23-24
• Virginia Tech: 11/17
• OZ Arts, Nashville: 11/21
• Brooklyn Academy of Music: 12/2-12/6
Anthracite Fields
Then On November 14, Julia Wolfe returns to the anthracite coal region in Pennsylvania, which inspired her Pulitzer prize-winning oratorio, Anthracite Fields…
Read MoreJulia Wolfe’s Pulitzer-Prize winning oratorio for chorus and instruments, Anthracite Fields, will be released on Cantaloupe Music on September 25, 2015. Wolfe wrote the piece after doing extensive research about the coal-mining industry in an area very near where she grew up in Pennsylvania. Her text draws on oral histories, interviews with miners and their families, speeches, geographic descriptions, children’s rhymes, and coal advertisements…
Read MoreJulia Wolfe Wins 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music for Anthracite Fields
an oratorio for chorus and instruments
“[Anthracite Fields] captures not only the sadness of hard lives lost…but also of the sweetness and passion of a way of daily life now also lost. The music compels without overstatement. This is a major, profound work.” — Mark Swed, LA Times
Read NPR interview with Wolfe here…
Read MoreClick on the WQXR streaming player to hear a live recording of Steel Hammer with the Bang on a Can All-Stars and vocalists Emily Eagen, Katie Geissinger and Molly Quinn recfrom October 14, 2014 at Brookfield Place’s Winter Garden in New York City.
This performance was presented in partnership with Arts Brookfield and WNYC’s New Sounds Live and hosted by John Schaefer…
Read MoreOn September 17, Colin Currie reprises his performance of riSE and fLY at London’s Southbank Centre, this time with conductor Ricardo Castro and the Youth Orchestra of Bahia.
Inspired by New York City street beats and the rhythms of American work song, Julia Wolfe’s riSE and fLY is a dazzling work commissioned by the BBC Concert Orchestra for Colin Currie.
Borrowing the title from a chain gang work song, Wolfe’s intention is to “take Colin to a new place and to bring something earthy and visceral to the orchestra – to break with formality and get down and dirty.”
The result is a thrilling evocation of street drummers, accordionists, singers, Chinese stringed erhus and the folk tradition of body percussion that fully encapsulates the festival’s title, Metal, Wood and Skin…
Read MoreOn May 30 and 31, the NY PHIL Biennial presents the New York premiere of Julia Wolfe’s newest work, Anthracite Fields, with the Bang on a Can All-Stars and the Choir of Trinity Wall Street (Julian Wachner, conductor). In the new work, Wolfe draws from oral histories, interviews, speeches, geographic descriptions, local rhymes, and coal advertisements to create a unique oratorio that provides an intimate look at an important slice of American life…
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