I'm always attracted to poems that have questions in them because they leave room for the music to become an important subtext. But I remember, at age 22, being particularly drawn to these questions -- from Rilke's collection of prayers in his slim, yet profound, Book of Hours. The eternal question "Do you hear me?" seems especially relevant to every generation, as we try to interpret our place in the order of things, and our relationship with the divine (and it to us, if indeed it has a relationship with us at all). I tried to write the music so that the musicians must interpret their roles… is the speaker God, providing comfort to the seeker? Or could the speaker be a humble human, created in God's image, reassuring God of her faith? Are the strings a character in themselves, a duet partner in the search for the divine, or something else entirely? I composed the music in my first year out of college, in that magic time where one leaves home and school to discover who she is. In this piece, I wondered out loud whether someone is out there answering our questions of existence and faith, or do these questions themselves echo so profoundly that even if the seeker hears only her own echo in reply -- whether or not she recognizes it as such -- perhaps she may be comforted purely by having asked the question.

~Abbie Betinis (2015)