Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning oratorio Anthracite Fields is a powerful tribute to the coal miners of Pennsylvania and the communities built on their labor. Scored for orchestra and chorus, the work weaves together miners’ names, oral histories, advertisements, and a child’s spelling lesson into a hypnotic, deeply moving musical portrait of a vanished way of life — and the human cost behind it.

Equal parts documentary, elegy, and celebration, Anthracite Fields is a strikingly original addition to the American musical canon, blending minimalist orchestral writing with the raw power of the human voice and the exceptional talents of the Bang on a Can All-Stars.