The first full-time classical composer to receive a MacArthur since Osvaldo Golijov in 2003, at 59, Julia Wolfe is known equally as a composer and as a co-founder of the new music collective Bang on a Can.
I first discovered her music through a love of the Bang on a Can All-Stars. There is something particularly sensory about Julia Wolfe’s music. To listen to her music is to feel it throughout your body. She has a penchant for creating textures that are effectively walls of sound that can at first feel oppressive. They approach you without timidity, stating their presence (or omnipresence) like a wall that is before you. Then, before you realize it, you are inside of the wall as if by sheer force of will. While you are in this moment, her music is very intense, but this moment is necessary to the long term effect, because at some point you pass through the wall.
The resonance, the openness, the exultation is all illuminating.
The piece we will be performing on the 24th of February is Stronghold, aptly named. Come hear the power of Julia Wolfe’s voice, come feel the weight of eight bass players. I promise that you will get to the end and feel overwhelmed in the best possible sense.
"I try to write music that I haven't heard before..."
JULIA WOLFE
AFTER EVERYTHING PRESENTS
S T R O N G H O L D A SELECTION OF WORKS BY
ANTON BRUCKNER Mass no 2 in E Minor, Kyrie
ANGELICA NEGRON Dust
PREBEN ANTONSEN Voices from the Nettle-Path
REZA VALI Folk Songs from Set 15
JULIA WOLFE Stronghold
8pm Saturday, February 24, 2018 U N I T Y C H U R C H O F S A N F R A N C I S C O
