Derek Charke

Derek continues to freelance as a new music performer and improvisor. He has a Masters degree in flute performance from SUNY Buffalo where he studied with the late Cheryl Gobbetti Hoffman. He’s a member of subText and perform regularly as a duo with percussionist Mark Adam. He’s written extensively for the flute. WARNING! Gustnadoes Ahead (for solo flute and CD) was commissioned for the 2008 National Flute Association Convention; Raga Cha was premiered by the London Flutes in England. Other works include a series of Raga Works for flute quartet; Disturbances of Circadian Rhythm and Lumière Immobile for flute and computer; Three Duets for flute and marimba; Distant Voices I and II for flute and piano; and Lachrymose for solo piccolo. For his Ph.D. he wrote a flute concerto The Winds of Winter for solo flute and chamber orchestra. To explore more of these flute compositions click here.

Quotes

“SubText featured flutist Derek Charke, a fascinating player who has mastered extended flute techniques encyclopedically. He plays double stops, multiphonics, percussive key taps, whistle tones and an entire appendix of chuffing attacks that excite the instrument to screech in multiphonic arrays with a hollow resonance. He also plays with a full, thick, round tone, the kind they talk about in the old treatises on flute sound, and with a legato thick as oil. And he does it all effortlessly, with true virtuosity. He and cellist Christoph Both created magnetic amalgams of tone that made you imagine molten gold.”

– © Stephen Pedersen, The Chronicle Herald from Jan. 2013

“On the second half, Charke returned to play Brian Ferneyhough’s Cassandra’s Dream Song for solo flute. Ferneyhough threw the kitchen sink at the performer with tremolos, multiphonics, tongue rams, key clicks, whistle tones, bent pitches and fourth octave notes, all arranged in a rapid fire series of gestures which also included singing and playing at the same time. Charke described the technique as The New Complexity, in introducing this remarkable work. His mastery of everything Ferneyhough demands of the player was mind-boggling."

– © Stephen Pedersen, The Chronicle Herald from 2009

"Derek Charke, the first musician to be featured in this program, played his [ Willim Jeths' ] work "Dwaalicht" from 1995 with stunning authority. His interesting piece was a mixture of the visual arts, spoken word, and flute."

– © Spectrum (SUNY Buffalo) from 2005

"The conclusion of the piece brought the audience to their feet and the ovation was so loud and extended that Charke returned to the stage for a second bow after exiting the stage and the concert room."

– © Spectrum (SUNY Buffalo) from 2001

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