Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Who's Afraid of
Julia Wolfe

One of New York’s finest and most visible composers, Bang on a Can co-founder Julia Wolfe is front-and-center this week and next. On Thursday, February 6, ETHEL kicks off its three-part survey of her string quartets (and John Zorn’s) at Columbia’s Miller Theater and on February 11 Cantaloupe will release a recording of the three quartets featuring ETHEL, Lark Quartet and the Cassatt String Quartet.

Through their relentless high energy and ferocious passion, Wolfe’s quartets have become popular repertoire for many of the younger quartets who specialize in contemporary music. Her music conveys an intensity and intimacy, a virtuosity and
joy of sound that turns the string quartet into a high voltage vehicle of expression. “Dig Deep” is a hard-charging force of nature; “Four Marys” was inspired by Wolfe's love for playing the Appalachian dulcimer, and “Early That Summer” is perhaps the best known of all of Wolfe’s work. As composer Evan Ziporyn writes, "There are no power chords in the breathtakingly virtuosic string quartet Early That Summer, but the vibrancy of rock and roll sears through every moment."

Wolfe body of work defies classification, drawing on range of influences as disparate as late Beethoven and Led Zeppelin. Her musical explorations are unified by a focus on sound as a beautiful and powerful abstraction imbued with meaning. Born in Philadelphia in 1958, Wolfe studied with Martin Bresnick at Yale, receiving her MM, and later did doctoral work at Princeton.

She is a Fulbright recipient who has also won awards and commissions from The Kronos Quartet, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Library of Congress, Meet The Composer, and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, among others.

Her music has been performed by a prestigious list of players, including the San Francisco Symphony, Bang on a Can All-Stars, American Composers Orchestra, Piano Circus, the Cassatt
Quartet, and Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne. Crossing over into the worlds of theater and dance, her works have been choreographed by Eliot Feld, Doug Varone, and the Dusseldorf Ballet; she also composed music for Anna Deveare-Smith’s most recent play House Arrest.

ETHEL performs the complete Julia Wolfe String Quartets in a 3-concert series
at New York’s Miller Theatre, as part of the series "The Complete String
Quartets of Julia Wolfe and John Zorn." "Dig Deep" will be performed on
February 6, "Four Marys" on March 13, and "Early That Summer" on April 24.
These works will be paired with world premieres from six other maverick New
York City composers.

The String Quartets
Composer: Julia Wolfe
Ensemble: Ethel, Cassatt String Quartet, et al.
Cantaloupe - #21011

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Our writers welcome your comments on their pieces. Send your witty bon mots to jbowles@sequenza21.com and we might even publish some of them here. And, don't forget--if you'd like to write for Sequenza21 (understanding that we have no money to pay you), send me a note. JB

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