Description

Osmia: Dream of the Mason Bees for Piccolo/Flute, Clarinet in B-flat, Bassoon, Violin, Viola, Cello, Percussion (Marimba, Temple Blocks)**(JB229)
Duration: Approximately 14:30

**A companion performance video is available, featuring images and videos of Mason Bees. Please contact the composer to request access for your performance. See performance video below to watch video paired with performance of world premiere. Video created and compiled by Jen Weeks – oboist of Bellingham Chamber Society.

 

 

 

 

World Premiere by the Bellingham Chamber Music Society – February 2026

Program Note

Osmia: Dream of the Mason Bees grew out of wonderful conversations with commissioners Jen Weeks (oboe) and Pat Nelson (bassoon) of the Bellingham Chamber Music Society. During the pandemic, Jen began raising Orchard Mason Bees (Osmia lignaria), and her stories inspired this work. These gentle, solitary bees live in pre‑made tunnels, often left by beetles or created from bamboo or cardboard tubes. Without a hive or queen to defend, they go about the work of pollination and building nests quietly and efficiently.

This single‑movement work traces the life of the Mason Bee. We begin inside the stillness of the nesting tunnels, where the first hints of movement gradually appear. The male bees emerge first, bright and crisp, followed by the more lyrical arrival of the female bees, their first wingbeats fluttering in grace notes and timbral trills. When they meet, their musical themes weave together.

A playful tango marks their courtship and then then shifts as the females head out alone in search of pollen. Fast grace notes capture the bees tumbling through flowers and returning dusted in the pollen. A sudden cacophony of bees tumbling wildly through the flowers eventually makes their way to the nesting tubes, represented by temple blocks. Here they work methodically, creating a series of partitions in the tubes: mud, pollen cake, egg, mud—repeating this ritual until the tunnel is full.

A gentle hymn becomes a lullaby for the growing larva, who soon begin spinning cocoons. The music darkens as pollen mites enter the scene, unsettling the hymn and threatening the developing bees. But some cocoons survive, and the final section brings a sense of renewal as the young bees awaken and rise into the air to begin the cycle again.

These joyful pollinators are essential to a thriving ecosystem, and we must continue to protect nesting habitats so the Mason Bee can continue to survive.

In one movement with sections:

1. The Mason Bee: Mysterious
2. Emerging: Out into the sun – with joy
3. Female Bees Emerge: tiny wings begin to move
4. The meeting of the Bees
5. Tango – The dance of the mating bees; Dreamy, beginning to fly
6. Landing on flowers, tumbling; flying in and out of the flowers; Suddenly, many bees; wild, overlapping – a cacophony of bees
7. The Nesting Tubes: Jaunty, with focus
8. Building the nest: Mud, Pollen cake, baby, mud
9. Hymn to the Larva
10. Spinning: the cocoon; Suddenly ominous, the destroyers appear, like a nightmare; with reverence
11. The Bees awaken: Suddenly alert; Into the sky…