It's winter in Nova Scotia. No snow, yet, but loads of rain. Today there was a spectacular rainbow after the rain let up.

10 Electroacoustic Studies are finished today! I've been slowly working on these studies in order to practice my EA skills. I think in 2010 I'll create a longer EA piece; we'll see what happens. You can listen to all 10 studies here. For all of the studies I've been using a combination of Digital Performer and Max/MSP to edit the soundfiles. Click here to listen to all 10 works.


Studio

The St. Lawrence String Quartet premieres "Sepia Fragments" which was Co-commissioned by The Kathleen and Alan Huckabone Family of Petawawa, Ontario, and CBC Radio 2 on the following four concerts:


Backstage with the quartet. Festival Theatre, Acadia University

UPEI Thursday, November 12, 7:30 PM Dr. Steel Recital Hall http://www.upei.ca/music/upei-music-department-concert-series

Acadia University Friday, November 13, 7:30 PM Festival Theatre http://www.acadiau.ca/artsacadia/apas/index.html

Memorial University of Newfoundland Saturday, November 14, 8:00 PM D.F. Cook Recital Hall. http://www.mun.ca/music/concerts/

University of Toronto Monday, November 16, 7:30 PM Walter Hall All five works on this concert were co-commissioned by CBC Radio and will be recorded for future broadcast on Sunday Afternoon in Concert and The Signal. http://www.music.utoronto.ca/events/calendar/


At a dinner with all of the composers and the CMC staff.

Kings arts - as of Nov. 3 by Wendy Elliott/The Advertiser
http://www.novanewsnow.com/article-395130-Kings-arts-as-of-Nov-3.html

"The St. Lawrence String Quartet (SLSQ) has established itself among the world-class chamber ensembles of its generation. Since winning both the Banff International String Quartet Competition and Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1992, the quartet has delighted audiences with its passionate and dynamic performances and will be in Wolfville Nov. 13. The SLSQ is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a new recording of Haydn and Dvorák quartets (two composers whose work will be featured at the Wolfville concert) through a partnership with the innovative company ArtistShare.com. In concert, the foursome regularly delivers traditional quartet repertoire, but is also fervently committed to performing and expanding the works of living composers. This season sees them performing new works by both John Adams and Osvaldo Golijov.

In 2008, following a nationwide search, Acadia’s Derek Charke was one of five Canadian composers, each representing a region of Canada, invited to create a new work celebrating the 20th anniversary. The SLSQ is delighted to have the opportunity to premiere this work in Atlantic Canada.

Violist Lesley Robertson is a founding member of the group, and hails from Edmonton. Cellist Christopher Costanza is from Utica, NY and joined the quartet in 2004. Violinists Geoff Nuttall and Scott St. John both grew up in London Ontario; Geoff is a founding member and Scott joined in 2006. Depending on concert repertoire, the two alternate the role of first violin. All four members of the quartet live and teach at Stanford University in California. For tickets ($26 adults/$17 students), call the Acadia Box Office at 542-5500."

Written by Jason van Eyk Thursday, 29 October 2009 18:11

Quoted in part... be sure to read the full article here: http://thewholenote.com/

"The St. Lawrence was hard pressed to select just five composers from the trove of almost 90 submissions they received back in the fall of 2007, when this project as launched. “To hold in our hands such a body of work from Canadians, coast to coast, was tremendously inspiring,” said Robertson, who coordinated the project. In trimming the selection down to the final group, the quartet was struck again and again by the diversity, creativity and strength of all the submissions. But in the end, only five could be selected, and so composers Marcus Goddard, Elizabeth Raum, Brian Current, Suzanne Hébert-Tremblay and Derek Charke were invited to join the St. Lawrence’s Anniversary Commissioning Team. The resulting works are themselves as diverse as Canada itself.

"New Brunswick-born composer Derek Charke offers a musical journey from the present to the past in his Sepia Fragments. The work plays off of several quotations, both original and borrowed, that appear to be sometimes clear, sometimes blurred, like memories captured in a time capsule. Fiddle tunes and reels dissolve to fragments of harmonics and trills. Snippets of Shostakovich transition into parlour music. Tchaikovsky-inspired tunes gives way to Vietnamese folk melody."

In addition to this culminating concert, the St. Lawrence has opened their November 16 afternoon rehearsal to the public. Anyone wishing to attend this free session may benefit immensely by observing the interaction between the Quartet and the composers, some of who will be hearing their work for the first time. The session, which will run 1-4 pm in Walter Hall, will include demonstrations and conversation with the musicians and the Commissioning Team."

I'm (finally) getting started on a new work for voice (Janice Jackson) and electronics. This should be completed by the middle of November. Today I begin my search for text in earnest. I've been thinking about the direction the work will take and will, in all likelihood, steer it towards themes of earth and acoustic ecology with ecopoetics as source material for the text.

Here are some details on several upcoming events:

1. A performance of works based on Darwin will happen at the Maritime Museum on October 17. I'll be playing flute in this ensemble.

2. Two Canadian Music Centre 20th Anniversary concerts will happen this October; (1) on October 24 in Antigonish at St.FX. University and (2) on October 25 in Wolfville at Acadia. Mark Adam and I will be performing Tony Genge's work "arabesque". Eugene Cormier and Ross Chaisson, a former Acadia grad, will be performing "Time's Passing Breath" for two guitars and soundtrack. I'll post more info closer to these dates

3. The St. Lawrence String quartet will perform a new work commissioned as part of their 20th Anniversary. "Sepia Fragments" was co-commissioned by the Huckabone Family and CBC radio. The SLSQ will perform this work in four locations; (1) PEI on Nov. 12, (2) Acadia University on Nov. 13, (3) MUN in NFLD on Nov. 14 and finally in Toronto (4) on November 16 at the University of Toronto. This performance will be recorded for CBC and broadcast at a later date. I'll post more info closer to these dates.

4. The Winnipeg Symphony has invited me to be one of their "Distinguished Canadian Guest Composers" for the 2010 New Music Festival, whose theme is also Earth. I'm quite excited about this! I've finished the scores and parts for three works, two arrangements of earlier string quartet pieces that I discuss in my posting below this one, and a new commission for full orchestra and soundscape, which I also discuss below. I'll be in Winnipeg for more than a week in February and will have a chance to take in the entire event.

5. Our own Acadia New Music Festival, Shattering the Silence is starting to take shape. It will happen on Jan. 20 – 24, 2010. We've commissioned two new works, one from Jerome Blais and the other from Peter Togni, which I'm excited about! We're in the process of securing our special guest performer and solidifying the concerts and other events which will take place during the 5 days.

6. Recently announced; The Kronos Quartet will perform Tundra Songs again this year with Tanya Tagaq. More info closer to the dates...

It's been quiet on this news page lately so I thought it might be time to post something...

I've taken some time this summer to simply read, study scores and listen to music – and also to travel and to attend my sister's wedding in Nanaimo. However, my composing schedule has been busy as usual. I'm working on several pieces at the moment, including:

1. Electroacoustic Studies that are based on – more or less – singular sound sources;

2. A new 15 minute work for the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (it includes an electronic soundscape, which has taken a considerable amount of time to complete!) called Falling from Cloudless Skies;

3. A reworking of some Inuit Throat Song Games for string orchestra that will be premiered by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and Tanya Tagaq during the Winnipeg New Music Festival in February 2010 (along with the new orchestra work mentioned above (2.) and a string quartet – Cercle du Nord III – which was originally composed for the Kronos Quartet);

4. And I'm starting a new work this August for Halifax soprano Janice Jackson that will be premiered at our New Music Festival in Wolfville this January 2010. Funding just came through – thanks once again to Nova Scotia, Tourism, Culture and Heritage for their ongoing support. This work will be for voice and live processing using the Max/MSP programming environment.

5. In addition I'll begin work this year on a composition for 2 tenor trombones, bass trombone and tuba, that has been commissioned by PEI trombonist Dale Sorensen with funding provided by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Photo taken in the early morning from the top of Haleakala Crater. This is from a trip my wife and I took to Maui earlier this month; be sure to click on the photo for a larger resolution. Cheers!

The Third Annual Acadia New Music Festival, Shattering the Silence 2009 was a success! 

Thanks to everyone who was a part of this years festival. I'd especially like to thank the many volunteers who worked behind the scenes to make this happen, and of course all of the performers and composers who did a phenomenal job! 

All told there were 6 full concerts, two lecture presentations by Jeff Hennessy and Russell Hartenberger, 2 composer master classes, including one by Ian Crutchley, a percussion master class with Dr. Hartenberger and a film on Elliott Carter. We only had one weather cancellation on the second morning but we rescheduled and managed to pull it all off. All the events went smoothly, and all had something special to offer. Audience turn out was WAY up this year which makes me believe we're starting to get the word out about new music in the Annapolis Valley!

The percussion ensemble played extremely well on Wednesday, probably the best I've ever heard them yet. The Thursday concert was perhaps the most eclectic but also the most exciting with such a diverse array of talent; the vocal ensemble, symphonic band and various faculty and student performances. The Acadia String Ensemble played a moving rendition of Charles Ives's the Unanswered Question. Also thanks to Ron Tomarelli for the Prokoviev and Ken Shorley for his work. The Friday concert was fun to play in. It was refreshing to be able to present Raga Cha the way it's supposed to sound, with a loud amplified flute quartet. The Wind Ensemble did an admirable job in their first performance of Lollapalooza and I'm excited to hear it again.

The Gala concert was remarkable. The performers did an excellent job on all the pieces, especially Zwilich's Trio, and I was particularly moved to hear John Luther Adams' work, The Farthest Place, performed to such an exacting standard. Chenoa Anderson sounded great on my new work, even though it took a second try to get the computer to cooperate! D'Arcy Gray pulled off Bone Alphabet with finesse. Can't forget Bob Bauer who wrote us a wonderful new gamelan inspired work, and Simon Docking who graced us with a performance of music by Tristan Murail. I'll announce as soon as I can when CBC Radio 2 is going to broadcast parts of this concert on the Signal.
Also thanks to all student composers, both in the emerging composers concert and in the CMC sponsored film event. There were many promising new works and many positive comments about the quality of writing. Plus thanks to all of the ensembles and solo performers who took time to learn and play such wonderful music for our festival this year. 

I am particularly grateful to Russell Hartenberger for giving his time so graciously, also to Mark Adam for his tireless contributions, even with a full on cold.

Finally I must also thank my co-conspirator Mark Hopkins for all of his work in organizing and conducting. We're both looking forward to doing it all again this time next year! 

Cheers, Derek

A remarkable night at Acadia’s Shattering the Silence By STEPHEN PEDERSEN Arts Reporter Sun. Feb 1, 2009

"Flutist/composer Derek Charke demonstrated his quality as both composer and performer Friday night on the third concert of Acadia University School of Music’s six-concert Shattering the Silence New Music Festival.
His Raga Cha for amplified flute quartet opened the program in Denton Hall by Acadia Faculty and Friends with captivating minimalism, featuring himself as well as flutists Chenoa Anderson, Jack Chen and Brenna Harriss. Charke led the ensemble with a series of chuffing bursts of air containing the merest hint of tone, played with exciting energy in a repetitive jazz-like rhythm. Chen echoed the chuffs while maintaining a machine-gun stream of short notes in step with Anderson and Harriss. The three flutes built a slowly unfolding harmonic spectrum over which Charke’s rhythmic thrusts danced and under which Anderson’s low-pitched alto flute painted a halo of resonance.

The admirable simplicity of the concept kept the audience riveted on catching the tiniest details.
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.

In other first half works, Acadia guitarist Eugene Cormier played a fascinating, if a little long-winded, transcribed improvisation by Carlo Domeniconi, called Koyunbaba Suite. The guitar is tuned down a minor third from its usual E minor tuning to the key of C-sharp minor. The effect was surprisingly bright for such a low tuning.
Clarinetist/professor Stan Fisher played the Abime des oiseaux movement from Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, written for violin, clarinet, cello and piano while Messiaen was incarcerated in a German prison camp in the Second World War. He was followed by Symphony Nova Scotia second clarinetist Eileen Walsh in a lively interpretation of Muczynski Time Pieces, accompanied by pianist Jennifer King.

Chenoa Anderson returned with pianist John Hansen and guest percussionist Russell Hartenberger on vibraphone to play John Luther Adams’s haunting exploration of the resonances hidden in slowly evolving work based on the harmonic "ladder" of natural overtones.

Conductor Mark Hopkins led the Acadia Wind Ensemble in Morton Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium and Adams’s Lollapalooza to end the concert. The Wind Ensemble is a student/community performing group not yet ready for prime time perhaps, but accomplished enough to give more than just an idea of what these works were about. Many moments of fine ensemble playing gave promise of potential development to a high level.

The Acadia Shattering The Silence New Music Festival, co-directed by Charke and Hopkins and in its third year, ends today. It is a valuable addition to the Nova Scotia music scene."

Shattering the Silence festival will feature 20 world premieres by Atlantic composers By STEPHEN PEDERSEN Arts Reporter Thu. Jan 29, 2009
"FLUTIST-COMPOSER Derek Charke and conductor Mark Hopkins are Shattering the Silence at Acadia University in Wolfville this week.

Tonight to Sunday the two music professors will present 20 world premieres by Atlantic composers, performed by Acadia School of Music students, faculty, and guests.

"Derek and I started this three years ago," Hopkins said over the phone from his studio at Acadia last week. "In previous years the festival has been more of a showcase or tapestry of different styles and ideas.

"The whole idea is we can recognize strengths within the School of Music itself. The percussion studio at Acadia is truly astonishing thanks to Mark Adam. We asked him about bringing in someone to work intensely with the percussion studio while here, to teach and perform as well. He suggested the ideal candidate: percussionist Russell Hartenberger."

Hartenberger is a founding member of Nexus, Canada’s ground-breaking percussion ensemble since 1971. He will do workshops and coach student percussionists as well as perform Steve Reich’s Marimba Phase (with Mark Adam) and other works
"Mark has a great percussion studio here," said Charke, who teaches flute and composition at Acadia. "Besides Hartenberger, we’ve invited Dalhousie University Music Department’s percussion teacher D’Arcy Gray. He’ll be doing Brian Fernyhough’s Bone Alphabet. It’s an incredibly difficult piece. It turned out D’Arcy was looking for an opportunity to play it."

Charke, who will be playing a Ferneyhough flute piece at the festival, describes Ferneyhough as a "new complexity" composer.

"He’s pushing the boundaries of what is possible and what is not possible," Charke said.
"Most of his pieces have this kind of hyper intensity. Performers have to attempt to get in all these gestures and all these notes and articulations and rhythmic structures such as playing 15 notes in the time of 16 . . . the page is just black."

Of the six concerts the main one is the big gala on Saturday night featuring the Ferneyhough percussion piece as well as Charke’s own Disturbances of Circadian Rhythm for flute and computer, written for and played by Sackville flutist Chenoa Anderson.

His work and Halifax composer Bob Bauer’s Nuovo Gamelan, played by Wolfville Tidal Pool Collective Ensemble, conducted by Hopkins, are world premieres.
"Derek and I both landed here intrigued with Acadia and the Annapolis Valley three years ago," Hopkins said. "We felt the place was underachieving, that there was good work to be done. The teaching was great, but an active new music community was missing.

"I have this voracious appetite for music. I drive a 20-year-old car, but I have more scores and recordings than you can think of. Derek is the same. In our second year, we decided to form a musical ensemble that does regular performances of music that we want to hear."

Meanwhile, Hopkins and Charke are bringing a group of Halifax performers to Wolfville for the Saturday night concert, including Gray, pianist Simon Docking, guitarist Bob Bauer, violinist Isabelle Fournier and Symphony Nova Scotia musicians clarinetist Eileen Walsh, cellist Norman Adams and doublebassist Max Kasper.
School of Music faculty performers include guitarist Eugene Cormier, clarinetist Stan Fisher, and pianists John Hansen and Jennifer King as well as Charke and Hopkins.

The festival ends Sunday afternoon in the Al Whittle Theatre with student composers who have written music for a segment of the film, Man With A Movie Camera, by Dziga Vertov (1896-1954).

They include James Fogarty (Université de Moncton), Robert Drisdelle (Dalhousie University), Denis Callaghan (Memorial University), Lukus Uhlman (Mount Allision University) and Carmen Braden (Acadia University).
The concert is part of the Canadian Music Centre (Atlantic Region) New Music in New Spaces project.
"Five Maritime universities have composition majors," Hopkins said. "We would like them to be a part of what’s going on too."

Tickets for most concerts are $15 at the door. Acadia students get in for free with a university I.D.
For complete details of programs and performers see http://music.acadiau.ca/shatteringthesilence"