Beeswing was composed at the suggestion of a friend, Sarah Ashton, during a summer visit to her home in a remote part of West Cornwall; the title refers to the name of Sarah’s house, ‘Beeswing,’ and the music is inspired by the various sights and sounds of the natural world observed in and around Sarah’s garden.
The piece has five movements:

1. Prelude: ‘Dragonfly Emerging’
2. Sarabande: ‘Song of the Seals’
3. Courante: ‘Wind in the Monterey Pines’
4. Air: ‘Menhir’
5. Gigue: ‘Stoat Dance’

The work is a rather free adaptation of the style and structure of a Baroque dance suite. The five short movements are sharply differentiated and all make fairly straightforward use of some extended flute techniques. The second movement calls for some simple whispered, spoken and sung vocalisation. The heart of the work is the fourth movement, which evokes the mysterious stillness of a standing stone at night.

Duration 10’00 approx.