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Wolfe has written a major body of work for strings, from quartets to full orchestra. Recent works include Flower Power, a concerto for the Bang on a Can All-Stars co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Danish National Symphony, Oxygen for 12 flutes, commissioned by the National Flute Association, and premiered by twelve flute choirs (144 flutes) and a new large-scale work, Her Story, for orchestra with the women’s chamber choir Lorelei, which will receive multiple performances in the 2022-23 season with a consortium of five orchestras including the Nashville Symphony, Boston Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Chicago Symphony, and National Symphony Orchestra. Mark Swed of the LA Times wrote, 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 ballad of jane orchestra series#
The 2019 world premiere of Fire in my mouth, a large-scale work for orchestra and women’s chorus, by the New York Philharmonic with The Crossing and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, received extensive acclaim - one reviewer called the work “a monumental achievement in high musical drama, among the most commandingly imaginative and emotively potent works of any kind that I’ve ever experienced.” (the Nation magazine) The work is the third in a series of compositions about the American worker: 2009’s Steel Hammer examines the folk-hero John Henry, and the 2015 Pulitzer prize-winning work, Anthracite Fields, a concert-length oratorio for chorus and instruments, draws on oral histories, interviews, speeches, and more to honor the people who persevered and endured in the Pennsylvania Anthracite coal region. She draws inspiration from folk, classical, and rock genres, bringing a modern sensibility to each while simultaneously tearing down the walls between them. Julia Wolfe (composer) 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. “Before I let your steam drill beat me down, Polly Ann, Mary Ann, Julie Ann, Sary Ann, Sally Ann,
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Steel Driver (hammer, hammer, steel, steel) He said, “This hammer’s gonna be the death of me.” He picked up his hammer and a little piece of steel He said, “I‘m gonna be a steel drivin’ man.” The Bang on a Can All-Stars add a slew of instruments to their usual line up – mountain dulcimer, wooden bones, banjo, harmonicas, and body percussion, as well as a dynamic trio of three female voices, to tell the tale. I drew upon the extreme variations of the story, fragmenting and weaving the contradictory versions of the ballad that have circulated since the late 1800s into a new whole – at times meditating on single words or phrases – in order to tell the story of the story and to embody the simultaneous diverse paths it traveled. But regardless of the details, John Henry, wielding a steel hammer, faced the onslaught of the industrial age as his super-human strength is challenged in a contest to out-dig an engine. Some have said that his fate was set before he picked up a hammer, that his woman’s name was Liza Jane or Polly Ann – that Polly drove steel just like a man. Many of the facts are unclear: some say that he was from West Virginia some say he was from South Carolina. The various versions, based on hearsay, recollection, and tall tales, reveal both the evolution of the story, as well as the timeless tale of human versus machine.
Steel Hammer is a meditation on over 200 versions of the John Henry ballad. Mark Stewart, electric guitar, banjo, mountain dulcimer, harmonica Steel Hammer was commissioned by Bang on a Can with generous support from Maria and Robert A.
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