New Music in the Air
29/01/09 08:52 Filed in: Press
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"
"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"
