Drawing inspiration from folk, classical, and rock genres, Julia Wolfe's music brings a modern sensibility to each while simultaneously tearing down the walls between them. Wolfe's music is distinguished by an intense physicality and a relentless power that pushes performers to extremes and demands attention from the audience. In the words of the Wall Street Journal, Wolfe has "long inhabited a terrain of [her] own, a place where classical forms are recharged by the repetitive patterns of minimalism and the driving energy of rock."
Wolfe has written a major body of work for strings, with pieces commissioned by the Lark, Ethel, Kronos, and Cassatt quartets. Three of her quartets - Dig Deep, Four Marys, and Early That Summer - can be heard on the disc Julia Wolfe: The String Quartets. As described by the New Yorker, these one-movement works "combine the violent forward drive of rock music with an aura of minimalist serenity [and] use the four instruments as a big guitar, whipping psychedelic states of mind into frenzied and ecstatic climaxes." Wolfe's thirty-minute Cruel Sister for string orchestra, inspired by a traditional English ballad of a love rivalry between sisters, was commissioned by the Munich Chamber Orchestra and received its US premiere at the Spoleto Festival. Her most unusual string work is perhapsStronghold, a tour de force for eight double basses written for Robert Black.
Photo: © Peter Serling, 2009
For more Information:
http://www.juliawolfemusic.com