-
2020 classical music GRAMMY nominees breathe new life into the genre / CapRadio
Posted At : January 7, 2020 12:00 AM
While you may not see much classical music representation on your TV screen during the 2020 Grammy awards, music's biggest evening this year is worth a look for classical fans. The classical music community may not take the Grammys as seriously as, say, the rest of the world. But in recent years, the nominating committee have taken an increasing interest in music from living composers, breathing new life into these all too often overlooked categories.
Composers Wynton Marsalis, Jennifer Higdon, Caroline Shaw, Julia Wolfe and Andrew Norman are among this year's standout nominees. Each has at least two chances to take home a gold-plated gramophone on Jan. 26.
Higdon is no doubt the one to beat in the category of Best Contemporary Classical Composition, with five nominations and two wins in the last 11 years. She faces her stiffest competition yet this year as her stunning and adventurous "Harp Concerto" is pitted against works by Marsalis, Shaw, Wolfe and Norman.
Iconic jazz trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis has written a violin concerto of all things, and it's up for Best Classical Instrumental solo. "I love the violin," he told NPR. "I always felt that if you're going to write American music and use strings, you have to learn about fiddlin'." He's enlisted Scottish superstar Nicola Benedetti to help him do just that. The piece is unabashed Americana, drawing influence from blues, jazz, Celtic music, bluegrass and more. Higdon's "Harp Concerto" also appears in this powerhouse category, as does a second violin concerto from Michael Torke and a solo recital featuring the acclaimed pianist Yuja Wang.
Julia Wolfe's "Fire in My Mouth," up for Best Engineered Album, recounts the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that torched the top floors of the Asch building in New York's Greenwich Village in 1911 and killed 146 immigrant workers, most of whom were women. The 50-minute oratorio is a documentary of sorts written for orchestra, multimedia presentation, and a huge 146-person choir of all women to represent those killed in the fire. The sheer vastness of the ensemble involved had to earn this powerful work a production nod in this category.
Of course, these are just the tip of the iceberg. More than half of this year's classical nominees are albums devoted to the music of living composers, showing the world that classical music is far from dead. You can find a full list of the nominees below.
PHOTO: Photos by Kait Moreno, Danny Clinch, J.D. Scott & Peter Serling (Clockwise from top left)
SEE THE 2020 Classical Music Grammy Nominees & LISTEN via CapRadio
-
NY Phil: Julia Wolfe - Fire In My Mouth selected as GRAMOPHONE: Editor's Choice - the best new classical albums: January 2020
Posted At : January 3, 2020 12:00 AM
The New York Philharmonic and Music Director Jaap van Zweden's World Premiere performances of Julia Wolfe's Fire in my mouth released in 2019 on Decca Gold. The Orchestra also co-commissioned the piece featuring The Crossing, conducted by Donald Nally, and the Young People's Chorus of New York City, directed by Francisco J. Núñez. The New York Times called the work "ambitious, heartfelt, often compelling. … There is both heady optimism and a sense of dread in Ms. Wolfe's music. … Mr. van Zweden led a commanding account of a score that … ends with an elegiac final chorus in which the names of all 146 victims are tenderly sung to create a fabric of music and memory." The performance earned the coveted spot in the highbrow / brilliant quadrant of New York.
The GRAMOPHONE review wrote: A modern work from composer Julia Wolfe about a century-old tragedy, but one whose theme – the treatment of the poorer members of society – resonates today.
SEE THE FULL GRAMOPHONE LIST
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d}
-
WQXR's 'Best Classical Concerts of 2019'
Posted At : December 18, 2019 12:00 AM
Dec 18, 2019 · by David Patrick Stearns
Maybe this is the New York catastrophizing mentality, but whenever I come off of a particularly good opera and concert year, I start worrying that a recession is on the way and all of that wonderful artistic momentum will be lost. You never know: just because your name is Cassandra doesn't mean the worst isn't happening. So the healthiest approach is to enjoy each event as it comes, and to remember that great music appears in an infinite variety of packages and sizes - and in all five boroughs.
Fire in My Mouth at the New York Philharmonic: The piece of the year? How about the piece of the decade? The January premiere of Julia Wolfe's work about the infamous 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that killed 146 immigrant women comes off even more powerfully on the recording, without the visual aids that came with the live performance. In fact, this minimalist-based composer is the master of sonic scene painting from moment one, suggesting not just imagery, but the emotions of the women who were processing them. More impressive yet is Wolfe's ability to build scenes into a state of almost unbearable tension.
The Metropolitan Opera: After some up and down years, the company is on a winning streak. Critics still disparage the Robert Lepage production of the Ring Cycle that was revived in the spring, but when the singing is right (Christine Goerke as Brünnhilde) and the conducting is inspired (Philippe Jordan), who cares? In the fall, Porgy and Bess (which I had mixed feelings about) was such a hit that performances have now been added, while Philip Glass's Akhnaten with Anthony Roth Costanzo was a sensation with younger audiences (though traditionalists still ask why the music has to be so repetitious). Among singers, Lisette Oropesa was a vocal dream in the title role of Massenet's Manon. The Queen of Spades had two breakout performances: by Yusif Eyvazov, loved by some for years, and who sang with a vocal and theatrical precision I never could've hoped for after hearing him last season in Tosca; and by co-star Lise Davidsen, who gives Wagnerians a reason to live, though she says Brünnhilde is way down the road.
Ellen Reid's opera p r i s m was the hit of the 2019 Prototype Festival in January, and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize, putting the 36-year-old composer firmly on the map.
Verdi Requiem: The jury may always be out on conductor Teodor Currentzis, who made his New York debut in November at The Shed in a series of Verdi Requiem performances with musicAeterna, his chorus and orchestra, plus video from the late filmmaker Jonas Mekas. And? To some, Currentzis will always be eccentric - which is why you see his Mozart opera recordings, though praised by some critics, in the bargain bin at the Metropolitan Opera gift shop. To me, the unforced clarity of the performance, the concentration, the detail, and the shaman-like phrase readings went to the heart of the piece in ways that eclipsed every previous Verdi Requiem I've heard. However, the hyperactive video that jumped between war ruins and blooming flowers was a meaningless distraction.
On Dec. 15 at Carnegie Hall, Joyce DiDonato delivered an inspired concept for Schubert's song cycle Winterreise: Normally sung by men, DiDonato portrays the protagonist's beloved as she reads his journal - each song one of the entries written as he trudges towards self-imposed isolation and death. Having sung Rossini for years, DiDonato gave the music great precision, warmly hugged by Yannick Nézet-Séguin's rubato-prone pianism. But in the final song - a terrifying hallucination of a broken-down hurdy-gurdy man - the journal book was put away, with DiDonato experiencing it as if seeing the angel of death claiming her beloved. A stroke of genius. It's available on video replay on Medici TV through March 16.
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d; min-height: 14.0px}
READ THE FULL WQXR: New York ARTICLE
-
Julia Wolfe - 'Fire in my mouth' makes 'npr:10 classical albums to usher in the next decade'
Posted At : December 11, 2019 12:00 AM
Traditions worth saving still need need practitioners and advocates who are willing to propel them forward. Classical music boasts a long, rich history - about 1000 years - of transformation, adaptation, tumult and triumph. From radical, boundary-bashing composers to brave and bold interpreters, the music has remained vibrantly alive even as prognosticators routinely forecast its demise.
The list below offers tip-of-the-iceberg evidence that those who compose and perform this music have, in the past year, been thinking about the future. Here are 10 amazing albums from 2019 that ask - sometimes demand - that we look inward to ourselves and outward to humanity as we listen.
If John Luther Adams is our de facto environmentalist composer, Julia Wolfe is our labor documentarian, tackling historic issues that resonate today. Fire in my mouth documents the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York, which killed 146 workers, mostly women. It follows Wolfe's Pulitzer-winning Anthracite Fields (on Pennsylvania coal miners) and Steel Hammer (Appalachian workers). Following suit, Fire is a riveting cross between public history and oratorio, utilizing original texts from those involved, backed by the New York Philharmonic and a 146-woman chorus. Wolfe's inspired orchestrations ping and buzz like the sewing machines used by the immigrant workforce, and in one scene, Yiddish and Italian songs are braided in a fugal reverie. By marrying history and music, Wolfe forces us to look to our past to protect our future.
SEE npr PAGE
-
CapRadio classical hosts' pick best music of the decade
Posted At : December 3, 2019 12:00 AM
Ear To Ear, as CapRadio Classical Hosts' Victor Forman, Kevin Doherty, Jennifer Reason Pick the Best Music Of The Decade. Choosing the best classical music of the decade is a herculean task, but CapRadio Classical hosts Jennifer Reason, Kevin Doherty and Victor Forman have undertaken the challenge for you in this month's Ear to Ear playlist blog. With everything from new operas to significant reimagining of classic favorites, they have selected the music that has impacted them and our listeners in the past decade. Enjoy!
Among Jennifer Reason's picks is Julia Wolfe - "Flowers," from "Anthracite Fields" - Performed by the Choir of Trinity Cathedral Wallstreet, the Bang On A Can All-stars, and Julian Wachner
Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music, "Anthracite Fields" deals with the history of coal mining in the U.S. Anthracite is a form of coal, and there are extensive such mining fields around the area of Philadelphia were Wolfe grew up.
This piece honors the hard-working people who sacrificed so much to mine the fields and fuel our nation's rapid growth at the turn of the 20th century. The coal mines produced a seemingly countless number of accidents and victims, many of whom were young boys, as this was before child labor laws. This piece is for them.
"Flowers," the track I selected, is a brief respite from the dark tale, and is the recounting of the gardens all the coal miners' wives kept at home. In this new decade, may we continue our progress towards greater human rights and respect for our planet.
Among Kevin Doherty's picks Max Richter - "Recomposed: Vivaldi's Four Seasons" - Performed by Daniel Hope and the Berlin Chamber Orchestra
German-born British composer Max Richter loved Vivaldi's music as a child, but as he got older, he says he grew somewhat tired of the Italian-Baroque composer's most recognizable opus.
He told NPR's Audie Cornish in 2012, "For me, the record and the project are trying to reclaim the piece, to fall in love with it again."
And reclaim the piece he did. Richter says he discarded about 75 percent of Vivaldi's material, but what he left in is unabashedly Vivaldi. Often, the experimental nature of new music can be alienating to many listeners, but by incorporating some of Vivaldi's catchiest hooks, Richter gives everyone a little something to hang on to.
From there Richter veers off into uncharted territory, using both acoustic and electronic tools to create breathtaking and powerful soundscapes. It just sounds a little bit more "poppy" than the original, if I might be so bold.
Listeners often enjoy it when I play selections from Richter's version of "The Four Seasons." I get more comments on it than just about any other piece of contemporary music that we spin on air. It never hurts to give an old standby some new life.
-
NY Phil: Julia Wolfe - Fire In My Mouth selected for 2020 GRAMMY nomination
Posted At : November 20, 2019 12:00 AM
NY Phil: Julia Wolfe - Fire In My Mouth selected for 2019 GRAMMY nomination for Best Engineered Album & Best Contemporary Classical Composition.
The New York Philharmonic and Music Director Jaap van Zweden's World Premiere performances of Julia Wolfe's Fire in my mouth on Decca Gold features; The Crossing, conducted by Donald Nally, and the Young People's Chorus of New York City, directed by Francisco J. Núñez. The New York Times called the work "ambitious, heartfelt, often compelling. … There is both heady optimism and a sense of dread in Ms. Wolfe's music. … Mr. van Zweden led a commanding account of a score that … ends with an elegiac final chorus in which the names of all 146 victims are tenderly sung to create a fabric of music and memory." The performance earned the coveted spot in the highbrow / brilliant quadrant of New York
-
Peak Performances will premiere Julia Wolfe, Maya Beiser collaboration - Spinning / Broadway World
Posted At : April 17, 2018 12:00 AM
Montclair State University's Peak Performances presents the world premiere of Spinning, a collaborative musical work written and composed by Pulitzer Prize winner and MacArthur Fellow Julia Wolfe (Anthracite Fields, 2015), and conceived with "cello goddess" (The New Yorker) Maya Beiser, with multimedia projections by innovative artist Laurie Olinder (May 10-13). Commissioned by Peak Performances and culminating their season of works by women, Spinning considers the essential labor of spinning thread-work once performed by hand by women-paying homage to the human dignity of this "women's work." Music has long been a vital part of this craft, both as a propelling force and as a distraction. Spinning,for three cellos and voice, is performed by Beiserwith Melody Giron and Lavena Johanson.
READ THE FULL Broadway World ARTICLE
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #606060}
-
For the 16th summer in a row, Bang on a Can is in residence at MASS MoCA / Northeast Public Radio
Posted At : July 30, 2017 12:00 AM
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Helvetica; min-height: 12.0px}
For the 16th summer in a row, new music collective Bang on a Can is in residence at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass., for its three-week summer music festival and institute. Festival highlights include a preview performance of the Bang on a Can All-Stars' Road Trip, which takes place on Saturday night August 5 at 8pm. A brand-new, evening-length work composed by Bang on a Can co-founders Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, Road Trip commemorates their 30-year collaborative journey together since founding Bang on a Can in 1987. A staged performance, Road Trip includes rock show lighting and multimedia elements. Earlier on Saturday, Bang on a Can celebrates the late musical visionary Pauline Oliveros – a longtime resident of the Hudson Valley - with a tribute concert marking her musical innovations and her "deep listening" approach.
SEE THE FULL Northeast Public Radio PAGE
-
Commemorating coal mining, Penn State's EMS Museum hosts conversation with Julia Wolfe & concert with Bang On A Can
Posted At : March 27, 2017 12:00 AM
The College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (EMS) is hosting a conversation with Pulitzer Prize winner Julia Wolfe along with other events commemorating the history of coal mining in Pennsylvania, from 4-5:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 30, in the EMS Museum & Art Gallery, ground floor of the Deike Building on the University Park campus. The events are free and open to the public. The EMS Museum & Art Gallery will have on display the exhibit "The Lure of the Mine," featuring works from the Steidle Collection of American Industrial Art that focus on the history of the coal industry in Pennsylvania. Wolfe's "Anthracite Fields" will be performed by the six-member ensemble - Bang on a Can All-Stars along with the Penn State Concert Choir, conducted by Christopher Kiver.
READ THE FULL Penn State ARTICLE
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Helvetica; min-height: 12.0px}
-
Cal Performances presents - Julia Wolfe's Pulitzer Prize-winning 'Anthracite Fields' with 'Bang on a Can all-stars' & 'Cappella SF'
Posted At : February 26, 2017 12:00 AM
Luminaries of the new music world, the chamber ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars joins with Cappella SF for a performance of founding member Julia Wolfe's Pulitzer Prize-winning Anthracite Fields. The poignant oratorio weaves together oral histories, personal interviews, speeches, and local lore with electro-acoustic chamber music to tell the stories of Pennsylvania coal miners and their families at the turn of the 20th century.
READ THE FULL SFGATE LISTING
-
Bang on a Can Marathon celebrates 30th ann. in a new home - the Brooklyn Museum / The New York Times
Posted At : February 3, 2017 12:00 AM
The Bang on a Can Marathon will celebrate its 30th anniversary in a new home across the East River. After many years in downtown Manhattan, the annual eight-hour celebration of contemporary classical music will take place at the Brooklyn Museum on Saturday, May 6. The concert will be a part of the museum's yearlong project "A Year of Yes: Reimagining Feminism," and will include works by Meredith Monk, Julia Wolfe and Joan La Barbara. Ms. Wolfe, a co-founder of Bang on a Can and a Pulitzer Prize winner, will present her piece "Steel Hammer," a folk ballad about John Henry and other railroad tales. The first marathon was organized by Ms. Wolfe, Michael Gordon and David Lang in 1987 in a SoHo art gallery; it has since been an annual fixture of downtown genre-crossing experimentalism.
READ THE FULL New York Times ARTICLE
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Helvetica; min-height: 12.0px}
-
For Julia Wolfe music is more than melodies, harmonies, and notes / The Daily Princetonian
Posted At : October 5, 2016 12:00 AM
For Julia Wolfe GS '12, composing music is more than just melodies, harmonies, and notes - it's a mix of musical and nonmusical elements. "In most pieces, I'm thinking about something extra-musical. While I'm thinking about notes, rhythms, and harmonies, I'm also creating an image, a narrative in my mind," Wolfe said. Wolfe was named as one of the 23 winners of this year's MacArthur Fellowship on Sept. 22.
Wolfe had been interested in music for a long time, but it wasn't until her freshman year of college that she really found herself immersed in music. "I've always responded to music in a very deep way … I just had this very visceral and emotional response to music, so that's what it was in the beginning," she said.
READ THE FULL Daily Princetonian ARTICLE
-
Julia Wolfe awarded MacArthur Fellowship / Los Angeles Times
Posted At : September 23, 2016 12:00 AM
After receiving the Pulitzer Prize for music last year, a Grammy Award nomination and other praise for her coal-mining-themed choral work "Anthracite Fields," composer Julia Wolfe can add another accolade to her professional mantel: a MacArthur Fellowship, a five-year grant that comes with an unrestricted $625,000 stipend. Wolfe was told about the fellowship earlier this month but could not reveal the news until the official MacArthur announcement Wednesday night, she said. "It's a long time to be quietly excited," Wolfe said by phone from New York. The composer said she has no concrete plans about what she will do with the fellowship money. "If I had a plan, that'd be really good! Even though I've known for about two weeks now, I'm not sure. It would give me time and space - what that'll translate that into, I don't know," she said.
READ THE FULL Los Angeles Times ARTICLE
READ Philly.com ARTICLE
READ The New Yorker
READ The Classical Arts
READ billboard
READ Yale News
READ NewsWise
READ ArtsJournal
READ Illinois Public Radio
-
Julia Wolfe's 'Anthracite Fields' presents voices from the coal mines / Studio 360
Posted At : August 15, 2016 12:00 AM
Composer and Bang on a Can co-founder Julia Wolfe won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in music for "Anthracite Fields," an hour-long oratorio for chorus and sextet, inspired by the lives of Pennsylvania coal miners a century ago. Wolfe was born in Philadelphia and grew up not far from Pennsylvania coal country. She says that the subject matter of "Anthracite Fields" might have been percolating for quite a while, albeit subconsciously. Until recent years, Wolfe's work has been exploring sound, timbre, and instrumentation, not language. "The thing I love about music is it's beyond words," she says. "But somehow the words crept back in - big time."
"Anthracite Fields," which has five movements, is full of words, with a libretto Wolfe wrote after nearly a year of research and interviews. The fourth movement, "Flowers," is based on an interview she did with a woman who was a daughter and granddaughter of miners. "One thing she said was, ‘We lived in very simple houses, a kind of impoverished existence, but we all had flowers and we had gardens.' And she started to name these flowers and I started scratching it down." That list of flowers became the text for the movement. "This was the way the women particularly, and the families, found a way to beautify this existence," she explains. "And I felt like the piece needed some flowers - after writing about the men deep down in the wells, this was a kind of moment of light."
But "Anthracite Fields" isn't just about the history of coal mining. Wolfe wanted to bring the piece into the present. The final movement, "Appliances," nods to both the environmental costs of coal and to the extent to which we are still so dependent on it. The text of the movement includes a "list of all the things you do every day that use coal: bake a cake, drill a hole, call your girlfriend, send a message," Wolfe says. "It gives the listener a chance to think, ‘How am I a part of this?'"
Listen to Kurt Anderson's extended Studio 360 conversation with Julia Wolfe
-
Ensemble Keeps Contemporary Music Banging at International Festival of Arts & Ideas / New Haven Independent
Posted At : June 22, 2016 12:00 AM
"The idea of Bang on a Can is to go somewhere you haven't been before," said Julia Wolfe of Bang on a Can. "When there were record stores, and music was sectioned off, we used to fall into the cracks of those sections. There were blurred lines and we were in that blur."
Bang on a Can has made its career by thriving in that blur. Since its first marathon concert in 1987, it has championed new music by living composers, recorded and performed new work, and creates ensembles with unusual combinations of instruments and found objects. In addition, it hosts a summer music festival, deploys a street band, and is part of OneBeat, a program under the aegis of the State Department that sends U.S. musicians abroad and brings foreign musicians to the United States for tours and cultural exchange.
Wolfe, one of the founders of Bang on a Can, and Robert Black, an original member of the group, spoke at a talk entitled "Orchestra of Original Instruments" recently at Neighborhood Music School, as part of the "ideas" programming in the International Festival of Arts & Ideas. Bang on a Can was in town for the run of Steel Hammer that took place at the Long Wharf Theatre. But in another sense, it was a homecoming, as the Yale School of Music is the unofficial birthplace of the contemporary classical music ensemble.
READ THE FULL New Haven Independent ARTICLE
-
Julia Wolfe goes underground for 'Anthracite Fields' / KPCC: The Frame
Posted At : March 7, 2016 12:00 AM
Julia Wolfe is the composer of "Anthracite Fields," an hour-long oratorio about Pennsylvania coal miners at the turn of the 20th century. The work, which took home the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for music, blends music with anthropological studies to create a poetic history - both of the miners' way of life and their broader impact on the world.
After Wolfe was commissioned by the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, she took a full year simply to research the piece. She traveled to coal mining towns to pore over historical documents and to conduct interviews with retired miners and their children. During the interviews she "made a very clear effort" to communicate that she also came from a small town in Pennsylvania.
As Wolfe told The Frame: "I did not want to be this city slicker. And in the end we felt this connection. There was a beautiful moment when two of the people I interviewed came to Philadelphia to hear the premiere. They were very moved by it. They understood what I was doing and it was very gratifying to know that it spoke to them. There was some sense they had that this was remembering a life they had lived, and that was important to them."
Each movement of "Anthracite Fields" examines a different aspect of the miners' stories - from fatal accidents, to child laborers known as "breaker boys," to the modern-day commodities that rely on coal power but which the average American might take for granted. Along with addressing historical and social issues, Wolfe was also wanted to create a type of sonic painting of the mines. She began her conversation with The Frame's John Horn by explaining this process.
LISTEN TO THE KPCC: Pasadena - The Frame SEGMENT
-
Julia Wolfe's Pulitzer-winning 'Anthracite Fields' makes West Coast debut at Disney Hall / Los Angeles Times
Posted At : March 2, 2016 12:00 AM
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, D.C. "I didn't take it. I didn't know who it was," she recounted. Later that day, she learned about the win from a colleague, and much celebrating ensued. And that missed call? "That was NPR," she said. "I was glad I didn't pick up. I would've said, 'Huh?' "
"Anthracite Fields" will have its West Coast premiere on Sunday, performed by the Los Angeles Master Chorale and members of the Bang on a Can All-Stars at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Divided into five chapters, the hourlong choral work creates a highly abstract and fragmented portrayal of the Coal Region, the area of northeast Pennsylvania where anthracite coal mining was the dominant industry around the turn of the 20th century.
READ THE FULL Los Angeles Times ARTICLE
READ LA Times REVIEW
READ Peoples World REVIEW
-
Julia Wolfe: Anthracite Fields up for GRAMMY! / Philly.com
Posted At : February 14, 2016 12:00 AM
Haunting, poignant and relentlessly physical, Julia Wolfe's Anthracite Fields is a lovingly detailed oratorio about turn-of-the-20th-century Pennsylvania coal miners, and a fitting recipient of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Music. NPR Music's Tom Huizenga describes the piece as "...almost a public history project and a music project at the same time," Weaving together personal interviews that she conducted with miners and their families, along with oral histories, speeches, rhymes and local mining lore, Wolfe sought to honor the working lives of Pennsylvania's anthracite region.
Anthracite Fields - which won the Pulitzer Prize, was commissioned and premiered by the choral group the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia. Anthracite Fields is up for a GRAMMY Today. The disc features Julian Wachner, The Choir of Trinity Wall Street & Bang on a Can All-Stars (Cantaloupe Music)
SEE Philly.com PAGE with Grammys artist noms with ties to Philadelphia
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/20160214_GRAMMYS__LOCAL_TIES.html#J8lrYfRFj1Em84To.99
-
Who Are the 2016 Classical GRAMMY Nominees? / WRTI Radio takes a look
Posted At : February 2, 2016 12:00 AM
The recording industry gives out the GRAMMY Awards in two weeks on February 15th, as the 58th Awards will honor "artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence." Ten categories are reserved for classical music, including Producer of the Year and Best Engineered Album awards. Others are for Orchestral Performance, Opera, Choral, Chamber Music and Small Ensemble, Instrumental and Vocal Solos, Classical Compendium, and Contemporary Composition.
Pianist Daniil Trifonov, Grammy nominee for Best Classical Instrumental Soloist for his album with The Philadelphia Orchestra, 'Rachmaninov Variations.' Grammy nominees range from early-music luminaries Paul O'Dette, Stephen Stubbs, and Philippe Jaroussky to contemporary groups Eighth Blackbird and Roomful of Teeth. Classical stars Cecilia Bartoli, Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato, Jonas Kaufmann, and Christian Tetzlaff are up for awards as well as lesser-known but brilliant artists such as Gil Rose, Chen Yi, and Frederic Rzewski.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin appears twice, conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and also leading the Philadelphia Orchestra with Daniil Trifonov in the Instrumental Solo category. Former longtime Philadelphia resident Marc-André Hamelin enters the lists in the Chamber Music category.
Why would locals be pulling for New York's Trinity Wall Street Choir and the Bang On A Can All-Stars? Well, they recorded Julia Wolfe's Anthracite Fields, and it was the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia that commissioned and premiered it last year, garnering it a Pulitzer.
WRTI: Philadelphia Kile Smith looks at the classical categories. LISTEN TO THE SEGMENT
-
Julia Wolfe's 'Anthracite Fields' Makes Iowa Public Radio?s 2015 Mega-Meta-List
Posted At : January 15, 2016 12:00 AM
Today's output of classical albums is (pardon me while I scribble on the back of an envelope) something like triple what it was a generation ago. I won't vouch for that exact ratio, but I will for Anne Midgette's description of how it feels: "Keeping up with the stream of new releases is like trying to drink from a fire hose." Now imagine trying to capture a hose's jet-spray in a bucket, and you'll see why making a classical "best-of-year" list in 2015 struck many writers as a thankless task, even a hopeless one. Yet that didn't stop more of us than ever from trying - perhaps enough of us to be called a crowd. Could that crowd, taken together, have some kind of collective wisdom?
That was more or less the premise behind my "Classical Mega-Meta-List" last year (inspired by economist /blogger Tyler Cowen). I tallied every "best of year" list I could find - a total of 36, comprising about 100 writers. This year I found far more: 64 lists, with at least 160 contributors, which makes this year's meta-list 60-77% more mega. It's not surprising that almost twice as many releases made the final cut, defined by being chosen for more than three best-of-year lists. Last year, 28 albums reached that threshold; this year, 50 albums did. That's a 78% increase.
Julia Wolfe's 'Anthracite Fields' received 6-7 votes in this pole.
How exactly would you write an oratorio about early-20th-century coal miners in Pennsylvania? American composer Julia Wolfe spent ten years perfecting her answer, and the richly evocative result won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015. It was clearly deserved. By the way, there's an Iowa connection: one movement takes its text from a speech by John L. Lewis, who was born in Lucas County back when it was a coal-mining center.
READ THE FULL IOWA PUBLIC RADIO PAGE
-
Julia Wolfe's 'Steel Hammer' brought to life at BAM
Posted At : January 5, 2016 12:00 AM
In the realm of American folklore, almost nothing quite compares to the tale of John Henry. The Appalachian legend tells of a steel-driving man who hammered holes for dynamite during the construction of the railroad. John was renowned for his speed and skill and eventually tested his hammering prowess in a competition against a steam-powered hammer. John won the race but died once it was over. Since its birth during Reconstruction, this classic American tale has lived on until the present in music, literature, and popular culture. Though the story has numerous variations, the main plot points remain the same: John Henry foretold his future as a steel-driving man when he was a child, was married to a woman he loved dearly, and eventually he raced against a steam-powered hammer, won, and then died.
In her oratorio, Steel Hammer, Julia Wolfe attempts to take the numerous variants of the John Henry legend and break them down in a hyper-focused exploration of the differences. Wolfe's take on the John Henry story was performed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars from December 2-6, 2015 as part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival. From start to finish, Wolfe's work does not attempt to reconcile the numerous versions of the legend; rather, Steel Hammer attempts to pair the variations alongside each other to highlight the very aspects that make them different and unique. There is no true telling of the John Henry legend, and Wolfe ingeniously plays on that fact in the structure and foundation of Steel Hammer.
READ THE FULL I Care If you Listen REVIEW
-
Yale Alum - Julia Wolfe gets GRAMMY Nom for Anthracite Fields / Yale School of Music
Posted At : December 9, 2015 12:00 AM
Several Yale School of Music alumni were among the musicians nominated for Grammy Awards. The nominations for the 2016 awards were announced Monday, December 7. Julia Wolfe '86 MM was nominated for Anthracite Fields, recorded for Cantaloupe Music by Julian Wachner with the Choir Of Trinity Wall Street and the Bang On A Can All-Stars. This same work won Wolfe the Pulitzer Prize earlier this year.
READ THE FULL YALE SCHOOL OF MUSIC ARTICLE
-
Julia Wolfe Premieres 'Steel Hammer'@BAM Next Wave Festival
Posted At : December 5, 2015 12:00 AM
Julia Wolfe is premiering her 2009 folklore drama Steel Hammer at BAM from December 2-6. The work centers around John Henry and is part of 2015's Next Wave Festival. Wolfe has an uncanny ability to channel Appalachian folk music in a way that old folkies could not. The story of John Henry is not anything uncommon--actually, it's been championed by the likes of Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen and Woody Guthrie through song. However, this unique staging of the tale is reported to be particularly intricate. John Henry was a steel-driving railroad worker who challenged a steam drill to a contest of labor. As legend has it, John Henry beat the steam drill and died shortly thereafter from the strain, hammer-in-hand.
Wolfe's - Anthracite Fields is a lovingly detailed oratorio about turn-of-the-20th-century Pennsylvania coal miners, and a fitting recipient of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Haunting, poignant and relentlessly physical, NPR's Tom Huizenga describes the piece as "...almost a public history project and a music project at the same time," which hints at the work's universal appeal.
-
Julia Wolfe - Anthracite Fields / Audiophile Audition review
Posted At : November 30, 2015 12:00 AM
Julia Wolfe is a consistently fascinating, and challenging, composer. Her music often takes small, lesser known, ‘slices of life' stories and gives them life and an audience through her music. Works such her Steel Hammer and Cruel Sister are a perfect example. She accomplishes the same and more inAnthracite Fields; which won her the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for music.
Anthracite Fields is essentially an oratorio about turn-of-the-20th-century Pennsylvania coal miners. From the publicity notes to this piece, "Weaving together personal interviews that she conducted with miners and their families, along with oral histories, speeches, rhymes and local mining lore, Wolfe sought to honor the working lives of Pennsylvania's anthracite region. ‘It's not necessarily mainstream history,' she told NPR shortly after she received word of winning the Pulitzer. ‘The politics are very fascinating; the issues about safety, and the consideration for the people who are working and what's involved in it'. Her compositional focal point however was non-judgmental. READ THE FULL Audiophile Audition REVIEW
-
Julia Wolfe - Anthracite Fields / SF Gate review
Posted At : November 27, 2015 12:00 AM
Julia Wolfe's Pulitzer Prize-winning oratorio "Anthracite Fields" is a thrillingly versatile tribute - by turns elegiac and celebratory, rambunctious and reflective - to the world of coal mining and miners in the composer's home state of Pennsylvania. The work's five movements are scored for chorus (the superb Choir of Trinity Wall Street led by Julian Wachner) and instrumental sextet (the Bang on a Can All-Stars), and Wolfe uses those musical resources, along with a wealth of evocative found texts, to create a monument that is at once directly expressive and sociologically weighty.
READ THE FULL SF Gate REVIEW
-
Julia Wolfe's Pulitzer Prize-Winning 'Anthracite Fields' is a Hard-Rocking Affair / Q2
Posted At : September 28, 2015 12:00 AM
All three founding composers of the Bang on a Can collective-Julia Wolfe, David Lang, and Michael Gordon-create music of unusual purity and violence. At times it even can be difficult to tell, in the vocal works they write together, where one composer leaves off and another begins, but Wolfe is arguably the hard-rocker of the three. Not the loudest, necessarily-that would be a tough call-but Wolfe is the one with the boldest sense of style, the one whose music is least likely to shy away from human blood and sinew.
Now, Wolfe has released Anthracite Fields-the oratorio that won her the Pulitzer Prize-on the collective's Cantaloupe Music, featuring the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and amplified sextet the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and it is a grisly affair indeed.
READ THE FULL Q2: New York ARTICLE
