Steven Banks is passionate about diversifying the world of classical music – from its programs and performers to audiences.
The world-renowned saxophonist, a 32-year-old native of Winston-Salem, N.C., will be the featured soloist at this weekend’s Quad City Symphony Orchestra Masterworks concerts. Banks will play the concerto “Diaspora,” written by Billy Childs for Banks and commissioned by Young Concert Artists and 10 orchestras— the largest consortium ever for a saxophone work.
The two African-American men were connected by Banks’s manager, and the sax player premiered the piece with the Kansas City Symphony in February 2023. “Diaspora” features soprano and alto saxophone.
“I just fell in love with his music as soon as I heard it, and also, I think that he has a big connection with the history of the saxophone, too, in that Billy is widely known as a jazz musician, and but actually the beginning of his career as a composer was in the classical realm.”
Commissioning and performing new works for saxophone is “mandatory,” Banks said, noting the repertoire going back is pretty limited (compared to other instruments like piano, violin and cello), as the saxophone was just invented in 1846. Many composers didn’t know about the instrument at first, and it became best known as a jazz instrument, Banks said.
“We’re actually building the standard repertoire for the classical saxophone and that is incredibly challenging but also a real honor to be part of that process,” he said. “And for other instruments, it’s important to commemorate and celebrate the artistic output of our time.”
Banks is committed to establishing the saxophone as a vital voice in classical music by commissioning works that showcase its expressive capabilities. This season, he premieres Joan Tower’s poignant new concerto “Love Returns” at the Colorado Music Festival, with additional performances by the National Symphony Orchestra Washington, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Toronto Symphony among others.
Childs (who has garnered 17 Grammy nominations and six awards) wrote “Diaspora” as – he said -- “a symphonic poem which strives to chronicle the paradigm of the forced black American diaspora, as sifted through the prism of my own experience as a black man in America.”
Each of the three movements is inspired by a poem -- Africa’s Lament by Nayyirah Waheed, If We Must Die by Claude McKay and And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou.
The work moves from imagining Africa, when the slave trade didn’t exist, to today looking forward to a more hopeful future.
“A lot of times in classical music, we’re not directly writing about something, it’s not always programmatic. But this work is, and so the poems serve as what Billy calls guideposts, to help the progression of the story. And this particular piece, he’s telling the story of the Black American diaspora.”
Banks’s goal is to be an advocate for this particular piece, and others he champions as a commissioner and composer. He’s the first saxophonist to receive a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and earn First Prize at the Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions.
Banks serves as Saxophone and Chamber Music Faculty and Artist-in-Residence at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He earned his degrees from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music and Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music.
50 performances across the nation
Childs’s piece has been played nearly 50 times so far, all over the country, and this will be its QC debut.
“It’s really the central motivation of my whole career, to try to bring a wider range of expression to the art form of classical music. I think there are so many things that can be said with this medium, so Billy’s piece is certainly a great example of that.”
Childs has said “Diaspora” is the most frequently performed of all his works, “so for me, that is the absolute definition of doing the work of promoting the work of Black composers and what they have to say,” Banks said.
Expanding variety in programming helps to broaden audiences, particularly helping attract younger, more diverse audiences in an especially white, graying industry.
“I think that it’s part of what’s necessary. Another part of what’s necessary is reaching out to new audiences directly,” Banks said. In the QC, he will be doing performances (primarily at schools) as part of his community engagement “Come As You Are Project,” to play excerpts from the piece and talk about it, to encourage more people to attend the concerts.
“I think that piece can be really vital as well, so people know what’s really happening,” he said.
As a composer, Banks’s solo works “Through My Mother’s Eyes” (commissioned by Chicago Symphony for Hilary Hahn) and “Fantasy on Recurring Daydreams” (premiered by pianist Zhu Wang) have received critical acclaim. His saxophone and piano works, including “Come As You Are,” are among the most performed pieces by saxophonists worldwide.
Meaningful highlights in his career so far are when young saxophonists use his pieces to further their own careers.
Banks worked with a sax player in the Concert Artists Guild, who played one of his works and won a competition with it. “Now he’s out there getting to perform more as well. Since so much of my mission is to move the instrument forward, that’s a wonderful thing, when other people are able to get some opportunities from things I’m doing.”
The QCSO will perform Saturday, Nov. 8 at 7:30 p.m. at the Adler Theatre in Davenport, and Sunday, Nov. 9, at 2 p.m. at Centennial Hall in Rock Island, with a program including Richard Strauss and Maurice Ravel.
For tickets and more information, visit QCSO.org.
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