Beam and Lee Hoiby’s Life of the Bee performed by mezzo-soprano Shauna Holiman, pianist Brent McMunn and cellist Barbara Stein Mallow (NY) [cellist Wendy Law in NC] is Included in the DRAM archive of recorded music and on the Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Archive. In addition to the Holiman premieres at the NC Literary Festival and at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall in 2001, it continues to be performed. See list of early performances below. The recording New Growth can be purchased from Albany Records.
Beam’s poems characterize various activities and residents of a beehive. “Millennium Approaches” begins the cycle with a brief elegy to the spent blossoms the bees have used to keep themselves and their world going. “The Spirit of the Hive” speaks to the inevitable call of wildflowers to the bee. “The Sting” depicts the fierce protection that the worker bees provide the hive from intruders.