Carnegie Hall Names Julia Wolfe as 2021-22 Debs Composer's Chair

In addition to receiving the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music, composer Julia Wolfe was a 2016 MacArthur Fellow and 2015 Herb Alpert Award in Music recipient. She is co-founder/co-artistic director of New York’s music collective Bang on a Can and serves as Artistic Director of NYU Steinhardt Music Composition.

She has written for large ensemble, chamber ensemble, solo and duo instrumentalists and vocalists, operas, choirs, and bands. Drawing inspiration from folk, classical, and rock genres, she received extension recognition after her 2019 world premiere of the larg-scale work Fire in my mouth, by the New York Philharmonic with The Crossing and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City. The piece is the third in a series of compositions about the American worker — the other two entitled Steel Hammer, about folk-hero John Henry, and the 2015 Pulitzer prize-winning work, Anthracite Fields, honoring the people who persevered in the Pennsylvania Anthracite coal region.

As the newest Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall, Wolfe will see her works performed at three concerts in Carnegie's Zankel Hall. Before her in-person concerts, Ms. Wolfe’s residency starts online with the film premiere of Oxygen, a flute duodecet written during this past year of isolation.

Of the in-person concerts, the first is on Thursday, March 3 at 7:30 PM performing Steel Hammer with Bang on a Can All-Stars and vocalists Rebecca L. Hargrove, Sonya Headlam, and Molly Netter.

The second is on Wednesday, April 13 at 7:30 PM of Ms. Wolfe’s evocative tone poem Cruel Sister, featuring Ensemble Signal and Music Director Brad Lubman, with violinist Tessa Lark.

On May 19th, the Bang on a Can All-Stars return to perform the Pulitzer Prize–winning Anthracite Fields with The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Director Julian Wachner, and Scenography and Projection Designer Jeff Sugg.