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Derek Charke is a JUNO and ECMA award-winning composer, flutist and professor of music at Acadia University.
Derek has been commissioned by world-renowned artists including the Kronos Quartet, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, and Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq. His music has been heard in prestigious venues like Carnegie Hall, the Guggenheim Museum, Roy Thomson Hall, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
His music tends to defy categorization. Encompassing familiar modal harmony, melody, and a strong rhythmic pulse in conjunction with modernist tendencies, including the use of extended instrumental techniques, his work has been described as post-minimal, inventive, rich textured, full of colour, and imbued with drama and rhythmic vitality. Ecological sound, field recordings, and a long-standing fascination with the Arctic are important to his aesthetics.
As a professor of music, Dr. Charke teaches courses in composition and theory. He is Co-Director of the annual Acadia New Music Festival "Shattering the Silence". Derek has a Ph.D. in composition from SUNY Buffalo where he studied with David Felder. Former teachers included Louis Andriessen, Steve Martland, and Cindy McTee.
As a professional flutist, he continues to perform as a new music soloist and improvisor. Derek is a member of the Halifax based group ‘subText’ and performs regularly as a duo with percussionist Mark Adam. Derek has a Masters degree in flute performance (also from SUNY Buffalo) where he studied with Cheryl Gobbetti Hoffman.
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