Remembrance also shapes the album’s construction. The collection of songs was written and produced over several years, then recorded with producer and engineer Howard Bilerman (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Wolf Parade) at Montreal’s Hotel2Tango.

“We recorded each song once, live off the floor with a choir that we had never recorded with before, and had only met on that day. When we listened back, we thought ‘Oh my gracious, this is an album.’ The music just flowed,” Elizabeth says. “Having a choir is such a luxury from my point of view,” Glenn adds with a glimmer of excitement, explaining the joy of improvising with a wide range of collaborators both on record and on stage. He laughs at the choir’s surprise — vocalists gathered by their musical director Alex Samaras — when “Let Us Dance (Movement One)” was recorded in a single take while equipment was still being set up. “There are no rehearsals!” Glenn jokes, and the two laugh. “In the twilight of our careers, to have those things that we’ve wanted to play with, really is a gift,” Elizabeth says.

Though this is the couple’s first album released in collaboration under the name Beverly Glenn-Copeland, their artistic partnership spans more than a decade and many disciplines. “My first great love was dance,” Glenn says when asked what continues to inspire them beyond music. He recalls working with choreographer Peggy Baker, who created pieces exploring Glenn’s cognitive impairment through dance. Glenn also cites a 30-year admiration for Dolly Parton and the fulfillment of working with other queer people through their community outreach.

Glenn is often referred to as a “Trans Elder” in community spaces, a term that does resonate upon reflection.

“You know, I don’t normally think about that, but if I reflect on it, yes, absolutely,” Glenn explains. “Because, you know, when you do something that’s not lauded by the majority of people, right, there’s always a need for some someone, especially if [you’re] young, you know, to tell you that you’re on the right track.”

“We’ve lost a lot of our community. There’s been a lot of community breakdown over the last hundred years, more over the last decade and certainly since the pandemic. And so, we do ask people to reflect on what does it mean to call someone an elder? And I know what we discuss a lot is that there is a need for reciprocity,” Elizabeth adds.

The album’s songs are beautifully retrospective, but not blindly hopeful. They are honest about aging, about love, and about what time takes from us. That honesty is their beauty. Glenn and Elizabeth speak with a depth that comes from choosing — and sometimes paying the price — to live a life that is true rather than one that neatly fits expectations. Both are incredibly vivacious, passionate, and witty, yet their vibrancy is only one part of a much larger life story.

“There is a great deal of loss, but we must also ask, ‘what is here that is beautiful? What is here that is whimsical, is witty, is wise?’ We both sometimes just sit down and have a mourn over parts of Glenn that are gone, that I don’t necessarily get to be with anymore. And Glenn has said, honey, I feel like I’m losing parts of you too, because I can’t remember certain things. It’s being with all the feelings,” Elizabeth says.

“For me, dancing down the road with Glenn just means holding a space for the complexity that being in an inter-abled relationship holds, which sometimes is just a deep level of physical exhaustion of just needing people to check in sometimes. So, people often check in and they say, ‘how’s Glenn?’ and sometimes it’s just like, could you add ‘…and how are you doing, Elizabeth? How’s it going for you? I know that you’ve just come back from a tour. Was that exhausting? What was that like for you?’ I think there is a larger breadth of joy and sorrow, of loss and gain,” she notes. “I think we all, in different times of our lives, find ourselves in caretaking roles for and with each other. And I think it’s something that we all do need to reflect on a lot more.”

Amid hardship, a throughline of acceptance and genuine hope remains. In times of uncertainty, Glenn and Elizabeth embody the power and possibility of choosing the shape of one’s life. Their joy and openness feel like a return — and also a reminder that there is still so much work to do.

Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s new album, Laughter in Summer, is out Feb. 6, 2026 via Transgressive.