The Bird, the Bee, & the Bear (2018) for flute, oboe, and tuba was composed at the request of friends at Middle Tennessee State University School of Music – Deanna Little, Grace Woodworth, and Chris Combest, collectively known as the MTSU Wind Trio. The work was composed for the Stones River Chamber Players concert series at MTSU and was premiered on March 25, 2019.

The ten-minute piece is in five brief movements. The first and last movements are ensemble pieces, and the middle three movements are solos with duo accompaniment. Throughout, the writing uses fluctuating degrees of independence among the players.

While there is no explicit story that the piece represents, it's not difficult to imagine these three animal friends on a pleasant stroll through the woods, and I've attempted to capture in the music a kind of musical caricature of each of the animals: bird–flute, bee–oboe, bear–tuba. It's not hard to connect popular children's stories with this presentation, including a reference to a famous "hunnypot."