Julia Wolfe is an American composer and university professor who writes modern classical music with strong rhythms and repeating patterns. Her style mixes ideas from minimalism and the energy of rock music. She teaches composition at New York University and is one of the founders of Bang on a Can, a group that supports new music through concerts, festivals, and recordings.

Wolfe grew up in Philadelphia and studied music after discovering it seriously at the University of Michigan. Later she trained at Yale, where she met and worked with composers Michael Gordon and David Lang. Together they started Bang on a Can in 1987, and later set up a music publisher and record label. She also earned a PhD from Princeton.

Her music includes many pieces for strings, from quartets to orchestras, often described as powerful, driving, and vivid. She has written large works based on real people and history, especially about labour and community. Her oratorio Anthracite Fields, about coal miners in Pennsylvania, won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Music.