Thanks for your interest in Bee-Sharp Honeybee!

Exciting News! This month Bee-Sharp Honeybee will be performed in Riga, Latvia, at the Mezaparks Grand Bandstand and Culture Palace. If you’re in Europe, meet Rae and animator Cj there! It’s all happening on Saturday May 27th at 2pm and 5pm.. https://estrade.riga.lv/en/events/bisu-diena-mezaparka/

New News: After a successful studio recording of Bee-Sharp Honeybee in January, we’re pleased to announce it’ll be released in August! Please follow our progress by joining the mailing list or following us on instagram.. In the meantime, here’s our Backstory:

An immersive journey through the secret life of bees, Bee-Sharp Honeybee features a string orchestra, live animated projections, and a real-time stream of honeybees. Inspired by, and directly derived from extensive research of rhythm, pitch, and waggle dance patterns, Bee-Sharp Honeybee magnifies the subtle intricacies of the beehive.. Music by Rae Howell. Projections by CJ. Bees by Mother Nature.

Produced by Sunwrae, Bee-Sharp Honeybee has been supported by Creative Victoria, APRA AMCOS Art Music Fund, The Finzi Trust, The Eric Stokes Trust, The Pollination Project, and a large cohort of generous Sunwrae Subscribers. Thanks also goes to Ex Ponto Productions, Little Projector Company, Millay Colony for the Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Jacky Winter Gardens, UMN Bee Research Lab, Deacon Warner, Jenny Warner, Film North, The Nati Bee Man, Mark & Elaine Uebergang, Rudy Panozzo, Melanie Obst, Mary French, Natimuk Primary School, and Seeding Victoria.

To see the full length short doco head here:
https://www.raehowell.me/beesharp-short-doc

The Film has been screened at the following festivals:
Minneapolis St Paul International Film Festival April 2018, MN
Duluth Superior Film Festival June 2018, MN
Square Lake Film & Music Festival (with post-film Q&A) August 2018, MN
Portland EcoFilm Festival (with post-film Q&A), September 2018, OR
Environmental Film Festival Australia October 2018, Australia
Colorado Environmental FIlm Festival February 2019, CO
Krakow Green Film Festival November 2019, Poland

Bee-Sharp hit the headlines a number of times.. in Minnesota, on ClassicalMPR and Growler Mag, and also in Australia, in The Courier.

SO, it’s been full-steam ahead behind the scenes! Since the idea sprouted in 2017, Bee-Sharp Honeybee is my contribution to help spread the word about bee culture, educate the public about the importance of bees to human survival, and inspire people to think local by planting pollinator friendly plants. Let’s take the plunge to keep backyards pesticide free, and become advocates for bees at a local level.. Afterall, small steps can lead to powerful changes. Better bee-lieve it!

It's an ambitious project, and there’s always business work ahead if we perform it again, so please consider donating to the project via the album page. It’s an independent creation, so to continue its existence, we’ll need your help!! Thanks for supporting the project!!

How it began:
Working in collaboration with hobby beekeepers, scientists and researchers from the University of Minnesota (UMN) Bee Research Lab, the Bee Squad, musicians, animators and a filmmaker, Bee-Sharp Honeybee began with an immersion in field recordings. Collating technical data, and analysing technical & musical (frequency & rhythm) details of the bee buzz, I created spectrograms (visual colour maps of frequency details) and frequency line graphs, and began to explore ways of creating music through the visuals of the frequencies.

My research observations & analysis grew into musical starting points, which I workshopped with the Laurels String Quartet. We experimented with tone, texture, phrasing, rhythmic elements and pitch, and from rehearsal recordings I developed these ideas further, and started designing a graphic notation system that best represented the concept and process of Bee-Sharp Honeybee, based on the way a bee-hive works, and so that every musician reads from the same score. These initial ‘Miniatures’ for string quartet are available as a 21 minute EP (audio example below!) for just a tenner!!!

With the help of a small team, alongside this we created a series of miniature claymation stop motion animation clips, to experiment with the bee-buzz as a moving image. This process included the combination of 3D claymation bees and flowers animated in stop motion, 2D hand-illustrated backdrops, and after-effects. Thanks to the Laurels String Quartet for playing the sound of the bee-buzz in the clips!

The nerdy part: The bee buzz tone (wing beat), can usually sustain approximately 250 beats per second (250Hz~ fairly close to middle C, or B#, hence the title). This frequency / wing beat intensity, changes with behavioural patterns (maximising pollen release, threatening situations etc), environmental/weather conditions and body/wing size- I’ve barely touched the surface of these buzz variations, so I look forward to digging deeper as the project develops.. (in bee-tween bee stings that is).

We performed the initial string quartet miniatures live at The Pollinator Party, on Thursday July 27, 2017, as well as a house-concert performance in Minneapolis the following evening.

This research and development of Bee-Sharp Honeybee culminated in a large-scale full length string orchestra work with a live hive of honeybees, and animated projections. 

We were recipients of the Eric Stokes Award for 2018, and huge thanks goes to following: The Finzi Trust, APRA AMCOS Art Music Fund, The UMN Bee Research Lab & Bee Squad, Jared Miller, Deacon & Jenny Warner, Kurt Weimer, Celia and Ron Wirth, Film North, Emily Downes, Marcie LaCerte, Sam Ballis, Fiona Toth-Gillies, MN Hobby Beekeepers Association, Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board, for supporting the initial stage of this journey..

With thanks to: