Giancarlo Guerrero conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Lorelei Ensemble performing Mahler and Julia Wolfe‘s Her Story, a BSO Commission.
Julia Wolfe — Her Story (BSO co-commission)
Mahler — Symphony No. 1
Lorelei Ensemble, Beth Willer, artistic director
Anne Kauffman, stage director
Jeff Sugg, scenic, lighting, and production designer
Andrew Cotton, sound designer
Márion Talán de la Rosa, costume designer
Members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra will perform a Prelude Concert at 6 p.m. in Ozawa Hall.
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Photo by Peter Sterling
Tanglewood will present acclaimed composer Julia Wolfe' 'Her Story.' Press photo courtesy of the artist
Julia Wolfe‘s BSO co-commissioned Her Story explores the struggle for women’s rights throughout U.S. history.
Julia Wolfe was born on December 18, 1958, in Philadelphia, and lives in New York City. Her Story was the result of a commission originally marking the centennial, in 2020, of the ratification of the 19th Amendment establishing a woman’s right to vote. Wolfe began the piece in 2019 but, when its premiere performances were canceled due to the pandemic, expanded its narrative scope; she completed the piece in 2022.
Her Story was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons, Music Director; the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Nashville Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra, and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. The Boston Symphony Orchestra commission is through the generous support of the New Works Fund established by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, and the Morton Margolis Fund. The first performances were given at Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center by the Nashville Symphony, Giancarlo Guerrero conducting, with the Lorelei Ensemble, September 15-17, 2022.
Known as one of today’s preeminent examples of the American maverick tradition of trailblazing composers, Julia Wolfe has had a formidable impact on the direction taken by the contemporary music scene.
The body of work she has created, which reflects an uninhibited, genre-defying attitude, taps into the power of music to illuminate the stories that make up our histories and, in the process, to evoke their contemporary resonance. Her contributions as co-founder and co-director of the influential music collective Bang on a Can (established in 1987) have further extended Wolfe’s influence among the new generation of composers.
Her Story is the latest in an ongoing series of large-scale, immersive choral-instrumental compositions in which Wolfe reimagines the tradition of the oratorio to examine the landmark struggles that have shaped American history and culture. It originated when Beth Willer, the artistic director of the Lorelei Ensemble, asked her to write a piece marking the year of suffrage and became the composer’s main focus during the height of the pandemic.
The score of Her Story calls for an amplified chorus of sopranos and altos, 3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), 3 oboes, 3 clarinets (3rd doubling bass clarinet), 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, 4 percussion (I. glockenspiel, marimba, gongs, small, medium, and large cymbals, ratty (beat-up) cymbal, sandblocks, wind chimes, snare drum, 5 tom-toms, kick drum; II. vibraphone, glockenspiel, crotales, very small, small, and medium cymbals, ratty cymbal), slapstick, sandblocks, snare drum, low and high tom-toms; III. vibraphone, chimes, triangle, siren, tam-tam, SM&L cymbals, snare drum, medium and low tom-toms; IV. crotales, chimes, triangle, flexatone, tam-tam, SM&L cymbals, tambourine, small bass drum, large bass drum), electric guitar, electric bass guitar, piano, harp, and strings (first and second violins, violas, cellos, and double basses). Duration is about 30 minutes.