Anthracite Fields

Anthracite Fields is an oratorio for choir and chamber ensemble by the American composer Julia Wolfe.

The composer has called it a tribute to those who “persevered and endured in the Pennsylvania Anthracite coal region.”[4] On her inspiration and research for the composition, Wolfe wrote: I was born in Philadelphia and am from a small town about an hour north of the city.

When (Mendelssohn Club Artistic Director) Alan Harler called me about writing a piece I thought that I would look to the region.

She took me to some amazing small local historical museums that depicted everything about the miners–from the tools they used to the medical facilities, to the disasters.

[5][6] The piece consists of five movements: Its Pulitzer Prize citation calls it "a powerful oratorio for chorus and sextet evoking Pennsylvania coal-mining life around the turn of the 20th Century.