Bang on a Can All-Stars Perform Julia Wolfe's STELL HAMMER at Carnegie Hall

On Thursday, March 3, 2022 at 7:30pm, the Bang on a Can All-Stars will perform Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, MacArthur Fellow, and Bang on a Can co-founder and co-artistic director Julia Wolfe's acclaimed oratorio Steel Hammer at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall. This performance is presented as part of Wolfe's tenure as Carnegie Hall's Richard and Barbara Debs Composer's Chair for the Hall's 2021-2022. For this production, a vocal trio featuring Rebecca L. Hargrove, Sonya Headlam, Molly Netter will join the Bang on a Can All-Stars Robert Black, David Cossin Vicky Chow, Arlen Hlusko, Mark Stewart, and Ken Thomson (adding banjo, wooden bones, clogging, and more to their usual line-up).

Based on hearsay, recollection, and tall tales, Steel Hammer is a retelling of the classic story of "John Henry." Drawing on the musical language of the American folk tradition, Wolfe illuminates the timeless legend of human versus machine while finding common ground-both musically and historically-between the traditional tale and the world and workers of today.

Originally commissioned by Carnegie Hall, the work premiered on tour in the US in the fall of 2009 featuring Bang on a Can All-Stars and Norway's renowned Trio Mediæval. It was a runner-up for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize and was recorded and released on Cantaloupe Music in 2015. In 2015, Wolfe teamed up with acclaimed American director Anne Bogart for a dramatized stage production incorporating Steel Hammer and text from four remarkable American Playwrights: Kia Corthron, Will Power, Carl Hancock Rux, and Regina Taylor. The fully staged production, commissioned by the Krannert Center and by BAM for the 2015 Next Wave Festival, featured the Bang on a Can All-Stars alongside the celebrated actors of Siti Company and developed and premiered at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2021, Cal Performances worked closely with Wolfe and filmmaker Jeremy Robins to create a new film which premiered virtually. The film featured the debut of singers Hargrove, Headlam, and Netter performing the work with the All-Stars.

An internationally celebrated composer, Julia Wolfe was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2015 and a MacArthur Fellowship in 2016. The New York Philharmonic recently premiered Wolfe's Fire in my mouth, a large-scale work for orchestra and women's chorus, continuing her interest in American labor history with the subject of women in New York's garment industry at the turn of the century. Wolfe's upcoming piece Her Story focuses on women and equality, and will be premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Nashville Symphony, and the National Symphony Orchestra, all with the women's chamber choir Lorelei.

For more information about Bang on a Can, please visit www.bangonacan.org.