Julia Wolfe & Bang on a Can All-Stars: Anthracite Fields

A concert of Julia Wolfe's Anthracite Fields, performed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars at NYU Skirball in New York, in the contemporary classical repertoire.

Julia Wolfe is an American composer and a co-founder, with Michael Gordon and David Lang, of Bang on a Can, the New York collective founded in 1987 to promote new music. Her work often draws on American history and labor, and Anthracite Fields takes as its subject the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania and the people who worked its mines.

The Bang on a Can All-Stars are the ensemble drawn from the collective's core performers, and they have long premiered and recorded works by Wolfe, Gordon and Lang. Their repertoire centers on contemporary composition, so Anthracite Fields is written for the group's instrumental approach rather than for a conventional orchestra.

NYU Skirball hosts concerts and shows in New York, and this program places a contemporary classical work by Wolfe on its schedule for audiences interested in new music from the Bang on a Can circle.