Julia Wolfe’s Steel Hammer

Cal Performances at Home premieres a new film, Steel Hammer, based on the acclaimed oratorio by Bang on a Can’s co-founder, Pulitzer Prize winner Julia Wolfe—a dazzling work that mines the sounds and stories of Appalachia. In Steel Hammer, Wolfe creates a musical amalgamation of every version of the folktale of “John Henry” that she could get her hands on—more than 200!—and weaves these often contradictory stories into an expansive allegory about the human cost of industrialization. The music marries folk cadences with driving rhythms in Wolfe’s densely layered compositional style. The film soundtrack, recorded by the Bang on a Can All-Stars and vocal trio, features hammered dulcimer, mouth harp, bones, clogs, banjo, and metal percussion.

“A musical archaeology of a familiar tale—one that preserves, even enlarges, its central mystery” (The New Yorker).

       An Illuminations: Fact or Fiction event >

The Cal Performances at Home Spring 2021 season is dedicated to Gail and Dan Rubinfeld, leading supporters of Cal Performances and the well-being of our artists for almost 30 years.

Major support provided by the U.S. Bank Foundation.

Patron Sponsor: Françoise Stone 

Program notes will be available approximately one week before the performance.