solo instrument(s) featured+large ens or orch

This work is appropriate for Middle School bands.

Composer's note: “The Calm Bee in the Busy Hive” grows out of a single sonority, the strum of the guitar’s strings, retuned to evoke the overtone series of it low E. The image of the piece is of the soloist as a calm, directed force in the midst of increasing activity. The subtitle of the work and the individual movement titles underscore this meaning.

The first movement literally constructs itself in real time. The soloist is progressively surrounded by concentric layers of music, played in turn by: second guitar; vibraphone; string trio; woodwind trio; harp and piano. In addition, the music in each outer layer moves to the next outermost with each addition, like ripples in a pool. Thus, it’s a canonic structure, though with free variation of material from layer to layer. When all the instruments have entered, the movement can end.