18 Facts About Julia Wolfe

Julia Wolfe was born on December 18,1958 and is an American composer and professor of music at New York University.

Julia Wolfe has received the Herb Alpert Award and was named a MacArthur Fellow.

Julia Wolfe went to Yale in 1984 and studied primarily with Martin Bresnick, and she married Michael Gordon the same year.

Julia Wolfe received a Fulbright Scholarship to travel to Amsterdam in 1992.

In 2012, Julia Wolfe received a PhD in composition from Princeton University.

Julia Wolfe has been a professor of music composition at New York University in the Steinhardt School since 2009, prior to which she was an adjunct professor at the Manhattan School of Music for seven years.

In 2015, Julia Wolfe won the Pulitzer Prize for music for her work Anthracite Fields, and in 2016 she was named a MacArthur Fellowship recipient.

Julia Wolfe has written a major body of work for strings, from quartets to full orchestra.

In Window of Vulnerability, written for the American Composers Orchestra and conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, Julia Wolfe creates a massive sonic universe of dense textures and fragile windows.

The influence of pop culture can be heard in many of Julia Wolfe's works, including Lick and Believing for the Bang on a Can All-Stars.

Julia Wolfe's Dark Full Ride is an obsessive and relentless exploration of the drum set, beginning with an extended hi-hat spotlight, while Lad is a piece for nine bagpipes.

Julia Wolfe drew on oral histories, interviews, geography, local rhymes, and coal advertisements for her Pulitzer Prize-winning piece Anthracite Fields, an oratorio about the coal mining community of her native Pennsylvania which premiered in Philadelphia and was performed at the New York Philharmonic Biennial in the spring of 2014.

Julia Wolfe's interest in labor history has informed her recent work, including Steel Hammer, an evening-length art-ballad that was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize.

Julia Wolfe has collaborated with theater artist Anna Deavere Smith, architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, filmmaker Bill Morrison, Ridge Theater, director Francois Girard, Jim Findlay, and choreographer Susan Marshall, among others.

Julia Wolfe received a 2000 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.

Julia Wolfe has composed a series of collaborative multimedia works with composers Michael Gordon and David Lang, including Lost Objects, Shelter, and The Carbon Copy Building.

Julia Wolfe created the citywide spectacle Traveling Music with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro in Bordeaux, France, filling the streets of the old city with 100 musicians walking and riding in pedi-cabs.

Julia Wolfe is one of the founders and artistic directors of Bang on a Can, best known for its Marathon Concerts during which an eclectic mix of pieces are performed in succession over the course of many hours while audience members are welcome to come and go as they please.