Montco woman Julia Wolfe wins Pulitzer for Music

Her piece, 'Anthracite Fields,' was first performed in Philadelphia

"Anthracite Fields" by Julia Wolfe has been awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music.
Julia Wolfe website/for PhillyVoice

Montgomeryville native Julia Wolfe, 56, has won a Pulitzer Prize for Music for her powerful piece "Anthracite Fields," first performed in Philadelphia.

The work is an oratorio composition for a chorus and a sextet - a formation containing exactly six members – and evokes Pennsylvania coal-mining life around the turn of the 20th century, according to The Pulitzer Prizes website.


 

Wolfe describes herself as a musical renegade, with inspirations that come from folks, classical and rock, the AP reports. 

"Anthracite Fields" was performed in April 2014 by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, of which she is the co-founder, and the Mendelssohn Club Chorus, a Philadelphia choral group.