In this time of constant noise, Wir invites us to remember that silence is the nourishing gift we now most need.

Written by poet Rebecca Gayle Howell, this new bespoke text moves us through a lyric elegy for the quiet we risk losing. As Howell prays for its return, she weaves her own English poetry with German fragments from Paul Celan, a poet survivor of the Holocaust who knew all too well the dangers caused by constant din.

We begin with a sober chant—Die Urnen der Stille sind leer / Die Urnen der Stille sind leer / Silence, your ash is spread. As the cycle advances, the two poets call and respond to each other in a dialogue that echoes across the canyons of history into our present hope that it’s not too late to recover solitude.

Wir is composed by Reena Esmail for violinist Hilary Hahn and baritone Matthias Goerne. At their request, there is no piano between them: Audiences will experience only violin and voice, accompanied by nothing but the silence the piece seeks. These two exceptional voices meet one another in disquiet and rest, requiem and revelation as they reveal what the divine Noone says once the noise falls away.

Wir—the German word for We. Polyvocal, bilingual, and minimal, Esmail and Howell’s Wir whirls with faith that silence can still guide us back to one another and to ourselves.