“We’re Here, What Now? is a new collaboration between interdisciplinary artist Susan Silton, composer Sarah Hennies, poet Lynne Thompson, the six-member women’s whistling group The Crowing Hens, and ensemble Wild Up, led by artistic director Christopher Rountree. Wild Up will present a workshop concert followed by a conversation with the artists.  We’re Here! What Now? is conceived as an assertion of survival in the face of compounded loss—whether it is the loss of a homeland, civil rights, glaciers, or the loss of shared ethics, purpose, truths, and facts. The project takes inspiration from a family whistle—used to gather family in public—passed down to Silton through multiple generations by her father, whose family fled Nazi Europe in 1938. The work is also posited as future-forward: how do we as women—queer, trans, lesbian, cisgender, BIPOC—pick up the pieces of loss, dwell in it, activate it, resist against it, whistle a different tune? At its core, this work speaks to the regenerative power in loss and the shared power of music—from the mouth, from the hand, from the heart—to help forge a path. It is a work about gathering those in a crowd who are listening.”