In This Breath is the first piece I was able to write after losing my partner in January 2024. For months, I could not compose at all; grief had emptied out the part of me that makes music possible. This piece became the place where I finally allowed myself to breathe again, and in doing so, I began to find my way back to music and to myself.

The music is lyrical and unabashedly romantic—shaped by a love I didn’t want to let go of, and by the ache of learning how to live in its absence. It moves through tenderness, longing, and the quiet devastation of not wanting a story to end. In many ways, the piece is a love letter: to what was, to what remains, and to the parts of love that continue even after loss rearranges everything.

The orchestral version gives this emotional landscape a more colorful, expansive canvas. The fuller palette allows the piece to bloom into something larger than grief alone—something that reflects both the depth of what I lost and the strength I rediscovered through creating again.