New York new music collective, Bang on a Can, has produced yet another Pulitzer Prize-winning composer: Julia Wolfe. The revered artist won for her composition, Anthracite Fields.
Described as "a powerful oratorio for chorus and sextet evoking Pennsylvania coal-mining life around the turn of the 20th century" by the Pulitzer panel, the hour-long piece was commissioned by the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia. It was given a world premiere on April 26, 2014 along with the Ban on a Can All-Star lineup.
Wolfe, a co-founder of the Bang on a Can ensemble and former finalist for the Pulitzer, comes as the second composer from the group to win the prize. Fellow co-founder David Lang won in 2008 for The Little Match Girl Passion.
Other finalists in this year's music category include Lei Liang for the piece Xiaoxing, which has been described as a concerto for alto saxophone "inspired by a widow's wail," and John Zorn for the piece The Aristos.
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