In summer 2024, I attended the Ravinia Festival as a David Baker Prize winner, where I met Billy Childs. His advice hit hard: reckon with the difference between composing “for academia” and composing for yourself—then “destroy” what you’ve learned and build something new that only you could make. Air With Layers is my response. I became obsessed with letting the music live and breathe—using silence and space as part of the narrative—while layering jazz, classical craft, and visual/interactive-media sensibilities into an immersive soundscape. The album features “Shattered Sky,” alongside my first multi-movement works, Symphony No. 1 and Piano Concerto No. 1, performed by the Budapest Scoring Orchestra.