betteryetblemished was written in collaboration with choreographer Erica Nelson for a new dance work to be featured on the Senior Dance Recital concert in 2015.  Erica and I met to discuss ideas for which to base the piece around and decided upon the idea of "finding the beauty in the ugly" and juxtaposing gritty elements with fragile elements.  The work begins rather traditionally, with a round played in string instruments before the main melody comes in. Once the melody is heard a series of feedbacks act as catalysts to shifts in the texture and mood.  The warm string sounds that were sounding before are now different, and much less stable.  The sounds of whispers acts a source of adversity for which the other sounds battle against.  In the end we hear the whispers morph into the accompaniment for which a distorted version of the melody plays top of, as if the whispers have altered the melody from its previously pure form.