“The Secret Life of Bees”

“The Secret Life of Bees” is an original composition I wrote for the 2014 Freshgrass Banjo Award. It is inspired by a 19th century romantic classical guitar piece called “Las Abejas” (trans. “The Bees”) by Augustin Barrios Mangore. I had arranged this Barrios piece for banjo, and in so doing was moved to craft an interpretation that explored and developed its unique qualities that came about from translating this music from the interface of guitar to my own mappings on the banjo fingerboard and tuning, with fewer strings and right hand fingers. In “The Secret Life of Bees”, I drew from the same idiom of Bach’s phrasing that was developed into a uniquely Spanish compositional style in 19th century Central America. Composing in this style for banjo resurrects music and the conversation about post-colonial musical identity, and invoking the African roots of the banjo and the late 19th century movement to elevate the instrument and the body of virtuostic classical music written for it. The tabla accompaniment enhances my comment on this cross-cultural exchange to an even greater global scale.