Anthracite Fields Anthracite Fields Anthracite Fields is an oratorio for choir and chamber ensemble by the American composer Julia Wolfe. The work was commissioned by the Mendelssohn Club with contributions from New Music USA and was premiered by Bang on a Can All Stars and the Mendelssohn Club Chorus in Philadelphia, April 26, 2014. It was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Music. The oratorio commemorates the history of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Coal Region in what the Pulitzer Prize citation described as "a powerful oratorio for chorus and sextet evoking Pennsylvania coal-mining life around the turn of the 20th Century." Music critic
Anthracite iron of 1839. In the meantime, Pioneer Furnace, in Pottsville, was blown in using anthracite fuel in 1839. It was built by William Lyman obtained the aid of a Welsh emigrant, Benjamin Perry, who was familiar with Neilson's process and the Yniscedwyn works, for the blowing-in. The furnace ran for three months on anthracite alone and fulfilled the conditions to win the $5,000 prize. In the design of Pioneer Furnace, Lyman had also been assisted by David Thomas, who had arrived in the United States in May 1839. Thomas was engaged by the LC&N to set up the Lehigh Crane Iron