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Biography

Julia Wolfe’s music is distinguished by an intense physicality and a relentless power that pushes performers to extremes and demands attention from the audience. She draws inspiration from folk, classical, and rock genres, bringing a modern sensibility to each while simultaneously tearing down the walls between them.

Wolfe’s recent premieres include Pretty, premiered in June 2023 by conductor Kirill Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic. Co-commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the St…

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Philadelphia Orchestra + National Symphony give premieres

Her Story with the Nashville Symphony © Kurt Heinecke

This week, February 27 through March 1, two recent Wolfe works for orchestra receive commissioner premieres: Her Story (for orchestra and women’s vocal ensemble) is performed by conductor Marin Alsop, the National Symphony Orchestra and Lorelei Ensemble. Pretty, is performed by The Philadelphia Orchestra, led by Music and Artistic Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Her Story [VIDEO] (1-min excerpt) Boston Symphony perfoms Her Story Her Story (1-min video excerpt) performed by
Boston Symphony with Lorelei

Co-commissioned by the Nashville Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and National Symphony Orchestra, Julia Wolfe’s Her Story is written for orchestra and women’s vocal ensemble …

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percussion concerto premieres

On October 11 on the Ether Festival at London’s Southbank Centre, international percussion super star, Colin Currie (with Keith Lockhart and the BBC Concert Orchestra) premieres Wolfe’s newest work for orchestra, riSE and fLY for percussion and orchestra, at the South Bank Centre’s Ether Festival in London.

Using street percussion (buckets and junk percussion) and Appalachian body percussion, Wolfe weaves the soloist into the quilted texture of the orchestra to create an introspective and breathtaking experience…

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Anthracite Fields performed in Coal Country

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…

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Flower Power premieres with LA Phil and 3 European orchestras

Julia Wolfe’s Flower Power had three European premieres before the pandemic (each featuring the Bang on a Can All-Stars): London, February 28, 2020 with the BBC Concert Orchestra; Dublin, March 28, 2020 with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra; Copenhagen, March 5, 2020 with the Danish Radio Symphony.

The work received its world premiere January 18-19, 2020 at Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles by the LA Philharmonic, with conductor John Adams and the Bang on a Can All-Stars…

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Fuel and Cruel Sister at Carnegie Hall

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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”…

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