Wolfe spent more than a year researching this subject, explored mines, visited museums, spoke with scholars, interviewing miners as well as their families, and then shaped their oral histories into 5 distinct movements. Commissioned by the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, this haunting hour long body of music is shockingly modern as it is cutting edge. Her piece entitled Anthracite Fields is a layered collaboration of musicians, costumes, choreography, candlelight, as well as film and photography. It is atmospheric yet carries the nightmarish weight of suffocating darkness. She also manages to take the listener from the formation of coal all the way to our modern day energy uses in the most thoughtful and intriguing ways possible. This is the soundtrack to what fuels our nation and those who have suffered to deliver it to us.
This music is now available to purchase as either a CD or in digital form.
