*this work has not yet been premiered. See Calendar for all six premiere dates.

Program Notes

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.

Text

Full text available upon request. Movement listing:

I. Die Urnen der Stille
II. Noone Sees
III. Einiges Schweig
IV. Finsternis / Wilderness
V. Einiges Sprach
VI. Silence Come
VII.Wir

Recording

(archival recording will be available after premieres)

Premiere/Performances

Wir will be premiered on October 24, 2026 by Hilary Hahn and Matthias Goerne, at Spivey Hall in Atlanta, GA. Subsequent premieres will be at University of Georgia, Davies Symphony Hall (presented by San Francisco Symphony), UCSB Arts & Lectures, Walt Disney Concert Hall (presented by Los Angeles Philharmonic) and La Jolla Music Society.

Press/Reviews

A seven-part cycle for violin and voice, Wir occupied the center of the evening. Scored without piano, the work proceeded in a series of relatively self-contained yet cumulative sections that alternate between more continuous vocal lines and passages in which the texture thins to sustained tones, isolated gestures, and deliberate silences. Dynamics remained largely restrained, and the two voices neither merged nor opposed each other, but left space in which the absence of sound carried the argument. The juxtaposition of Howell’s English with Celan’s German fragments created a measured dialogue rather than a stark collision,

While Esmail’s broader language draws on Hindustani practice, the character of Wir in this hearing felt more like a spare, contemporary idiom that treats silence and sustained sound as structural materials.

– Mark Gresham, EarRelevant