On January 20, Julia Wolfe joins the U-M Contemporary Directions Ensemble, directed by Oriol Sans, for an evening of conversation and performances of her small ensemble works.
This concert is part of a week-long residency by Ms. Wolfe (a U-M alum) to develop Fire in my Mouth, an evening-length orchestral work co-commissioned by UMS with the New York Philharmonic, Cal Performances and the Krannert Center.
This event is free and open to the public; no tickets required…
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read New York Times review from the premiere
listen to NPR interview with Wolfe about Her Story
Julia Wolfe’s Her Story, a 40-minute, theatrical work for orchestra and women’s chamber choir, received its world premiere September 15-17 with the Nashville Symphony and conductor Giancarlo Guerrero. The world premiere is followed by performances in 2023 from co-commissioners Chicago Symphony Orchestra (January 6–7), Boston Symphony Orchestra (March 16–18), and San Francisco Symphony (May 25–27); National Symphony Orchestra concerts will be announced at a later date…
continue readingHer Story
Boston Symphony Orchestra
with Lorelei
Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor
March 16-18
followed by performances with:
San Francisco Symphony and National Symphony
[Her Story] has a ferocity that is literally written into the score, but also an absence of resolution as it looks back to suffrage with one wary eye toward the future steps this country still needs to take for something resembling true equality…
continue reading![[IMAGE] Julia Wolfe's Her Story © 2022, Kurt Heinecke](https://mcusercontent.com/67441ca74ccaac699656b26c5/images/1a361a7c-46c7-e9e2-369f-91233ca7e488.jpg)
Her Story
Marin Alsop and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Lorelei
January 6-7, 2023
followed by performances with:
Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony,
and National Symphony
By David Ng
When you win a Pulitzer Prize for music, you hear about it just like everyone else — in the news perhaps, or from other people who read about it before you do.
You don’t know anything, said composer Julia Wolfe, who won the coveted award last year for her choral piece Anthracite Fields, an unconventional exploration into the history of coal mining in rural Pennsylvania.
Wolfe recalled that she was at home in her Tribeca loft, working with colleagues from the Bang on a Can ensemble, when a call came in from Washington, DC…
continue readingThe music of Beethoven and Bach gets a lot of attention in the Berkshires every summer. But amid the more august offerings, there is a musical collective that wants to rip the powdered wig off traditional classical music. Playing the work of living composers, and using unconventional methods, they are interested in anything but a musical history lesson.
Leading a string ensemble of about twenty musicians an hour before their public recital, conductor Brad Lubman gives his players an unusual criticism—they sound too polished, clean, locked in with each other…
continue reading![[IMAGE] Julia Wolfe's Flower Power](https://juliawolfe.sqcdy.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/01/fp-jpg-400x292.jpg)
January 24-26, conductor Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony perform Julia Wolfe’s Flower Power, featuring the Bang on a Can All-Stars.
A concerto for the All-Stars and orchestra, with video art by Jeff Sugg, Flower Power was co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Danish Radio Orchestra.
From Julia Wolfe:
Flower Power is about optimism, idealism, psychedelia, breaking with convention, and a little bit of love and peace…
continue readingRead the New York Times Preview
Miller Theater at Columbia University presents a portrait concert of the music of Julia Wolfe on February 3.
New York’s Signal Ensemble, conducted by Brad Lubman, gives the NY premieres of Wolfe’s two string orchestra works, Fuel and Cruel Sister.
New CD: Cruel Sister“Though Ms. Wolfe never directly quotes this mournful song, she painstakingly depicts the story…
continue readingIt’s been a long time coming, but Shelter is finally here!
The latest collaborative work by Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe is a modern oratorio that reunites the Bang on a Can founders with Deborah Artman (author of the libretto for 2001’s Lost Objects). Produced by Michael Riesman, this premiere recording was performed by Ensemble Signal under the baton of conductor Brad Lubman, and features solo voices Martha Cluver, Mellissa Hughes and Caroline Shaw…
continue readingAfter 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
Then On November 14, Julia Wolfe returns to the anthracite coal region in Pennsylvania, which inspired her Pulitzer prize-winning oratorio, Anthracite Fields…
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