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 saw three major orchestra premieres in the 2022-23 season. Pretty was premiered in June 2023 by conductor Kirill Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic…
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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 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 Allan Kozinn
Like most composers, Julia Wolfe is often in two places at once psychically: working on new pieces (with working defined as anything from cogitating and experimenting to actually putting the notes on paper) but also seeing that the backlist is getting attention. In recent weeks she has been putting the finishing touches on “Iron Maiden,” a new solo work for the percussionist Evelyn Glennie, and working on “Combat de Boxe,” for the Asko Ensemble of the Netherlands…
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Sometimes, all you need is a little push. In the fall of 1976, when Julia Wolfe arrived at the University of Michigan from Pennsylvania, she was just 17 and viewed herself as a “wild teenager” with her sights on social sciences and politics. Activism was a possible path. Music wasn’t on her radar.
But one day, a friend coaxed Wolfe into taking a peculiar music class, taught by a forward-thinking Quaker who didn’t care how much you knew about composing…
continue reading[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLc44Ra387k width:300 height:169]From January 29 through February 2 the Aire de Jeu festival at Les Subsistances in Lyon, France — the International Laboratory for artistic creation dedicated to theatre, dance, and contemporary circus — features four works (Dig Deep, Dark Full Ride, Lad and Stronghold) by composer Julia Wolfe choreographed by Arkadi Zaides, Maud Le Pladec, Tania Carvalho and Faustin Linyekula…
continue readingJulia 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…
continue readingIn April, the Bang on a Can All-Stars travel to Europe for a blockbuster set of concerts, including the European premiere of Julia Wolfe’s Anthracite Fields and the Dutch premiere of her Steel Hammer.
On Saturday April 16, Wolfe’s Pulitzer prize-winning, Anthracite Fields, a concert-length work for chorus and instruments, receives its European premiere with the Bang on a Can All-Stars and the Danish Radio Vocal Ensemble at The Royal Library of Denmark, Copenhagen
The recording of Anthracite Fields on Cantaloupe Music was nominated for a 2016 Grammy award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition…
continue readingThursday, April 20, 2017
Louisville Symphony Orchestra
Teddy Abrams, conductor
Louisville, KY
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Big Beautiful Dark and Scary is one continuous and compelling swell that lives up to every adjective in the title. Wolfe’s music is constantly pushing forward through waves of tension and tremolo until it finally releases a scant 10 seconds before the end of the piece.
— Sequenza21
Anthracite Fields: tours Pennsylvania
[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…
continue readingTom Huizenga (NPR)
September 15, 2022
Sometimes, all you need is a little push. In the fall of 1976, when Julia Wolfe arrived at the University of Michigan from Pennsylvania, she was just 17 and viewed herself as a “wild teenager” with her sights on social sciences and politics. Activism was a possible path…
continue reading