What if We’re Beautiful is an experiment in musical gift-craft. I don’t knit or crochet, but even so, I imagine these movements as something akin to handknit musical objects woven from modest sonic threads, each made with a particular recipient in mind. And although there are countless fine examples of composers making imagistic portraits or reflective dedications, I’ve aimed for something a little different here – each piece feels to be less portraiture of any particular person and more as an opportunity to make something enjoyable for a few folks I hold very dear. In doing so, it’s my hope that others who hear and play this piece – including my friends in Hub New Music – also find something meaningful, too. 

To be sure, the gifts offered in this piece are themselves the refraction of the countless and intangible gifts of queer (and queer-adjacent) friendship and joy I have received from the band of fellow travelers acknowledged in these movement titles. And although I didn’t immediately set out to write a piece about queer joy, that’s basically what happened here anyway; as the piece came together, it became increasingly clear to me that it’s also an appreciation of the boisterous, delicate, wacky, campy, and sorrowful joy that we can offer to one another.

– Daniel Thomas Davis

Commissioned by Hub New Music