November 17, 2007

World premiere of "Silenced"

Stan Fisher, Clarinet
Blue Engine String Quartet
Donna E. Smyth, Poet
Featuring "Silenced" a new work by Derek Charke
Saturday, November 17, 2007 at 7:30pm
Festival Theatre, Wolfville, Nova Scotia
more information

Backstage after the concert

November 13, 2007

Words, music, break the silence
by Wendy Elliott
The Advertiser

"Composer Derek Charke’s new work will have its world premiere in Wolfville this weekend.

“Silenced” is for string quartet and clarinet, commissioned by Charke’s Acadia University music colleague, Stan Fisher. Funding was provided by Nova Scotia department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage.

The premiere will take place Saturday, Nov. 17 at Wolfville’s Festival Theatre.

The genesis of this special evening came from Fisher, who plays the clarinet.

“He wanted to deal with the issue of violence against women, and essentially asked me for a work of an elegiac nature. I thought about the project quite a bit before responding.”

Charke wasn't too sure about tackling the subject matter: “for one thing, I'm not a woman, and I didn't think that I had any direct experience with violence against women. But after a while I came around and realized that this is a subject that affects us all: our wives, sisters, daughters, or friends, other relatives.”

Watching the horrific events unfold in the Robert Pickton trial inspired Charke’s composition.

“I grew up in the lower mainland of B.C. This was such a terrible tragedy, made worse because of the lack of interest from the police for such a long time. All of those missing women - and no one really paid any attention.”

He says he decided to call the work “Silenced” so it would be more encompassing. He and Fisher set the premiere to coincide with the École Polytechnique Massacre in Quebec, so the title became more apropos. Students from Acadia have been recruited to extinguish 14 candles, representing the 14 women killed in Montreal.

Charke composed the work over a four-month stretch, then talked with Donna Smyth about her poem. Smyth, who used to teach creative writing at Acadia, is contributing a newly commissioned poem, “Spirit-wind,” her response to violence directed at women. The Halifax-based Blue Engine String Quartet, along with Fisher, will perform a Brahms clarinet quartet, along with Charke’s new work."

October 22 - November 1 , 2007

The Katona Twins perform Time's Passing Breath at the Colombia Guitar Festival

October 29, 2007

CBC Interview
with Phlis McGregor
In The Arts - Maritimes

Tuesday, October 9, 2007: Nunavut in Los Angeles...

Derek Charke has a way with sound and music. Charke is an assistant professor at Acadia University. And these days he is working on a new composition commissioned by the world-renowned string quartet The Kronos Quartet. The working title of the piece is called "Tundra Songs". It will feature Inuit throat-singer Tanya Tagaq. And will also include many natural sounds recorded by Charke in Nunavut.

Arts producer Phlis McGregor dropped by Derek Charke's studio outside of Wolfville to put together this piece. [runs: 5:17] Listen here (real audio)

September 4 , 2007

CHARKE and MARK
The free improv duo returns on the last Tuesday of each month at On The Verge Restaurant and Music in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Mark Adam on percussion and Derek Charke on Flutes with special guests from time to time.

July 29, 2007

Nunavut’s first symphony
Classical composition includes ravens, throatsinging
CHRIS WINDEYER
(Quoted here in part)

"Vivaldi had his four seasons. Derek Charke has six to work with.

Charke was in Iqaluit this past March collecting sounds for a piece he's composing for the Kronos Quartet, a California-based string quartet who are as close as it comes to stars in the world of classical music these days.

The composition is to be part of a program entitled "Nunavut," which the quartet will perform with Cambridge Bay throat singer Tanya Tagaq Gillis in Los Angeles next April.

The Kronos Quartet is "pretty much scouring the globe for anything and everything in terms of integrating world music into their repertoire," Charke said from his home in Kentville, Nova Scotia.

Charke was just sitting down to start work on the piece June 1 when a reporter called. Its working title, for now, is "The Seasons." Relaxed and affable, Charke's demeanour stands in contrast to the image of the tortured composer tearing his hair out over a score. He works at a drafting table, with a computer to one side and a piano to the other.

"I was actually combing through literature this morning and trying to figure out the whole idea about the seasons and the Inuit mythology about the seasons," he said. "It's very different, obviously, than the southern seasons."

Armed with an array of microphones and escorted by Iqaluit outfitter Matty McNair, Charke set out to find sounds that will serve as accompaniment for the Kronos Quartet's strings and Gillis' throat singing. Charke collected the sounds of sled dogs, wind, and skidoos and even stuck a microphone under the sea ice.

But even out on the sea ice, while taping McNair's dog team, Charke found he couldn't escape the creep of high technology.

"I get 20 minutes of great sounds and then I get about an hour of the airplane engines starting and taxiing, with a few raven sounds in between," Charke says, laughing.

"But then there's something that's typically northern: transportation in the north now. And the whole thing about this is not just keeping it historical because that's not what Tanya does with her music either."

The professor of composition at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia also collected the sounds of local storytellers and drum dancers which will all be melded together to create a backing track that will morph from sound to sound, drifting in and out of rhythm. When he's finished writing the score, Charke will send the completed soundscape and string parts to the other musicians who will overdub their tracks.

Gillis and the Kronos Quartet have performed together several times, including two shows last month in Paris and Koln, Germany. Charke has also written music for the quartet before: 2005's Cercle du Nord III involved similar experimentation with Arctic sounds, tape loops and stringed instruments and was broadcast on CBC Radio Two.

And while Charke says some might resist the integration of traditional forms like throat singing with contemporary sounds, he restates the rock musician's maxim of stealing from everybody.

"This is happening all over the world now," he says. "[Artists are] begging, borrowing and stealing from every culture in the world and mixing it. It's one of the ways forward for music as a whole."

June, 2007

Here are a couple of photos from Derek's Banff Centre for the Arts Composer Residency

On a hike at lake Louis

Backstage before a performance of Raga Cha

April 10, 2007

New CD just released by Composer Michelle Boudreau contains Derek Charke's "Cercle du Nord II" and a performance by Derek on flute of Michelle's work "La chasse caribous", part of her work "L'Intruse" from 2002. http://www3.sympatico.ca/michelleboudreau/ If you are in Montreal on April 24th check out the CD Release at the Canadian Music Centre between 5 and 7pm. Espace Kendergian Centre de musique canadienne Mardi 24 avril 2007, 5 à 7 416, rue McGill, Montréal

March 19 - 27, 2007

Derek is in Iqaluit, Nunavut to record sounds for a new Kronos Quartet commission.

Standing near the Polynya (20 or more Kms from Iqaluit, Nunavut). March 21, 2007

Recording the dogs outside of Iqaluit, Nunavut. Matty McNair, the owner of Northwinds
Arctic Adventures is by the sled. March 21, 2007

The open water of the Polynya. Recording sounds under the ice. Iqaluit, Nunavut.
March 22, 2007

February 9 - 11, 2007

1st Annual Acadia New Music Festival
"Shattering the Silence"

For a full schedule of events, show times and ticket prices visit http://music.acadiau.ca/nmf2007.htm

From left to right: Mark Hopkins, Derek Charke, Chenoa Anderson, Ian Crutchley, Eugene Cormier

February 8, 2007

Out with the old, in with the new (music) Thur Feb. 8, 2007
Shattering the Silence festival begins this Friday - compositions by students, professors and international musicians alike
By Katie Fahey

Between the innovative student composers and performers, the showcase concerts and the Cabaret evening at On the Verge, you can brace yourself for some very cool music this weekend. This weekend marks the debut of Acadia’s first annual New Music Festival aptly named, Shattering the Silence.

“We want to mix this up and give students and the community a chance to hear sounds they haven’t encountered before… hence the theme Shattering the Silence!” says enthusiastic co-founder and co-artistic director of the festival, Dr. Derek Charke. He, along with fellow music professor Dr. Mark Hopkins, conceived of the event. “There is so much beautiful music being written right now, today, by living composers that it’s a shame to not have a showcase festival that specifically addresses, promotes and fosters new music creation.”

Charke says a good percentage of the music being performed has been written in the past ten years. “What makes this festival special is the sheer number of world premieres.” He goes on to say “there will be so much variety that the audience is sure to walk away with some memorable experiences!”

The weekend kicks off Friday afternoon with a free preview concert at Denton Hall Auditorium. It continues with showcase concerts throughout the weekend and includes an evening at On the Verge. Excitingly, there are two specifically student focused concerts both at noon on Saturday and Sunday.

Student composer Justin Wah Kan will be debuting a piece involving two flutes and his own live electronic mix. “It’s great to be able to be a part [of the festival] and watch it grow,” he says, adding that “its part of being in composition to have your pieces performed at these type of events (and as many as we can get into).”

Fellow student composer Greg Harrison says his pie was one of five chosen from Dr. Charke’s composition class to be performed at the festival. “This isn’t your conventional music festival (i.e. selected Bach works on piano). There will be some wacky performances and works out there,” he says. “For instance, the piece I wrote is for marimba and a guitar loop pedal.”

On the programme are 10 world premieres by student composers including Andrew Anderson, Nick Bedell, Mitch Burke, Rebecca Crisp, Kevon Cronin, Edward Enman, Greg Harrison, Amanda Riley, Ryan Neilson and Justin Wah Kan. Student performers include Stephen Ambra, Alaina Boyd, Mitch Burke Greg George, Laura Gillis, Greg Harrison, Kathyrn Humphries, Megan Johnson, Emily Lang, Kristen Lenz, Chad Nelson, Erin O’Toole, Joel Rudolph, Kattie Titus, Roy Richardson and Casandra Widdifield.