“Betty’s Notebook,” a multi-media choral piece created by Verdigris Ensemble has been sold for over $375,000 to several bidders.

The work was sold on auction at Async Art, a digital art auction blockchain platform.

The work was composed by Texan Nicholas Reeves in 2018 and premiered in 2019. Sam Brukhman, the founder and Artistic Director of Verdigris Ensemble, recorded the work under strict COVID-19 protocols by layering four different programmable components together including the 16-person Verdigris Ensemble (named “The Choir”), a late-in-life interview by Betty Klenk (who at 15-years—old recorded what she believed to be Amelia Earhart’s distress signals and final words), jazz songs composed by Reeves (called “Betty’s “Radio”), and a choral complement of Betty’s voice entitled “Betty’s Choir.”

As such, the owner of the recording can determine which jazz tracks are played in a wide range of acoustic settings. They can also choose what “Betty’s Voice (the interview)” focuses on. The owner can also choose what emotion “The Choir” conveys.  In sum, there are 81 total permutations of the recording that the owner can experience.

“In each stem, there are multiple variants creating different narratives,” Brukhman explained in a press release. “This is an ever-evolving piece of art, and we become like Betty, turning the dials on the short-wave radio with different sounds and voices coming to the forefront, fading away, or becoming scrambled. Betty was a detective trying to make sense of this, and we are too as we listen and interact with the work.”

Metapurse purchased “The Choir” for $19,094, “Betty’s Voice” for $26,732, and “Betty’s Radio” for $42,916; the NFT fund also purchased “Betty’s Notebook: The Master Track” for $215,989. Meanwhile “Betty’s Choir” was sold to MaximoNX for $49,644.