News – Julia Wolfe

Anthracite Fields performed in Coal Country

November 1, 2015

On 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…

some exciting upcoming performances!…….. Steel Hammer, Anthracite Fields, True Love concerto

October 22, 2015

Steel 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…

Pulitzer Prize-winning Anthracite Fields released on CD

September 23, 2015

Julia 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…

Julia Wolfe Wins 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music

April 21, 2015

Julia 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…

Steel Hammer live streaming on WQXR

November 10, 2014

Click 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…

riSE and fLY :: Colin Currie at Southbank Centre

July 18, 2014

On 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…

Anthracite Fields at NY Phil Biennial

June 5, 2014

On 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…

Steel Hammer Released

May 5, 2014

Click Here To Purchase CD

On Tuesday April 29, Cantaloupe Music releases Julia Wolfe’s much-anticipated recording of her evening-length art ballad , Steel Hammer.

Inspired by her love for the music and lore of Appalachia, Wolfe based her text for Steel Hammer on over 200 versions of the American legend “John Henry”, which has been recorded by everyone from Johnny Cash to Bruce Springsteen…

Steel Hammer CD preorder before 4/20

February 11, 2014

Pre-order Julia Wolfe’s Steel Hammer before April 20 and receive advance copies, signed CDs, credit as an Associate Producer (order before February 18), and special hand-drawn score page from Steel Hammer, the hotly anticipated album by Julia Wolfe, featuring the Bang on a Can All-Stars and Trio Mediaeval.

Inspired by her love for the music and lore of Appalachia, Julia Wolfe based her text for Steel Hammer (called a “wild hybrid” by the New York Times) on over 200 versions of the John Henry ballad, exploring the subject of human vs…

Fuel and Cruel Sister at Carnegie Hall

October 7, 2013

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This season Julia Wolfe’s large works for string orchestra, Fuel and Cruel Sister, are performed at Carnegie Hall by two of the country’s leading interpretors of contemporary works.

On October 25, Robert Spano leads the American Composers Orchestra in their Carnegie performance of Julia Wolfe’s full-throttled work for strings, Fuel, on a concert dubbed “Orchestra Underground: Adding Fuel to the Fire”…