Honey Flyers by Christine Southworth

Live Recording: 1 | 2 | 3

Performed by the Calder Quartet
for string quartet and Bot(i)Cello - to be premiered with the new Bot(i)Cello in Spring 2008

Honey Flyers Score (pdf)

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.