" an absolutely beautiful song reminiscent of a combination of God Is An Astronaut mixed with the Tosca Tango Orchestra's Waking Life soundtrack, with huge dramatic breaks and patterns that drew out the beauty of these "Honey Flyers." - Joe Dahlstrom, JamBase
Christine Southworth's "Honey Flyers" did conjure quivers of bees, but not in the traditional sense: The three-part composition somewhat resembled the buzzing hives, but flowered into something with almost traditional pop structure. -Annie Zaleski, Riverfront Times
Christine Southworth’s “Honey Flyers” was an intense musical maelstrom, inspiring a sudden vision of riding through a dark forest on a stormy night in a horse-drawn carriage. Dunno; just saying. The violin took human form midway through, screaming like a hysterical woman. Then soft, wistful cries over a terse backbeat of viola and cello. An extraordinary work, beautifully executed. This piece is often performed with a Bot(i)cello, an electric string robot designed by Christine Southworth and others at Ensemble Robot. Although the Bot(i)cello had the evening off, it was still very beautiful. - Julie Stroller, The Boston Survival Guide
"IT WAS WEIRD. IT WAS SWEET. As one would imagine, it was a strange as hell. And it pretty much ruled."- Metal Edge Magazine (Calder Quartet + Andrew W.K. w/ Bot(i)Cello at Le Poisson Rouge, 11/15/08)
I received the commission for Honey Flyers in late January 2007, less than two hours after I heard the news that my friend John Lad had passed away. John was a very dear friend, a violist and tai chi master, and in our last conversation while we were talking about my upcoming trip to New Zealand, he mentioned that he had a brother there who kept sheep. I met Frank in Christchurch at his beautiful city house where he did not keep sheep (that was in fact another brother in Wisconsin) but he did keep honeybees. Honeybees have been in crisis worldwide this year, and I felt that it was fated that I keep honeybees as well. So now I’m the proud owner of around 40,000 bees thanks to John and his brother Frank, and as I’ve been writing this piece throughout this whole time, I have named it after the bees and dedicated it to my friend John, whose memory continues to inspire me.
