On this week’s Modern Notebook with Tyler Kline: Dai Wei’s piece “Honeycomb” is music born out of her own observations of a beehive outside her bedroom window. Stuck inside during the COVID-19 lockdowns, she would watch bees come and go, and later learned how bees passed nectar to one another to form a honeycomb–and this natural process went on to inspire the construction of this piece.

Then: hear music by Akshaya Avril Tucker for trumpet and saxophone, and a piece by Sean William Calhoun called “Plasmonic Mirror.” And a guitar quartet by João Luiz titled “Three Brazilian Pieces,” which serves as a musical portrait of three forms of expression from his native country.

Featuring works by Gala Flagello, Carme Rodriguez, Toru Takemitsu, Daijana Wallace, Nicole Chamberlain, Matana Roberts, Brendon Randall-Myers, and others; and performances by Talla Rouge, pianist Isabel Dobarro, cellist Kivie Cahn-Lipman, UNC Greensboro Casella Sinfonietta, The Merian Ensemble, Unheard-of//Ensemble, trumpeter Kenken Gorder with saxophonist Marina Sakellakis, New York Guitar Quartet, flutist Laura Lentz, and more.