Steven Banks, Classical Saxophone

Friday, October 28, 2022

7:30 pm

Memorial Hall, OTR

Winner of the 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant - the first time awarded to a saxophonist!

Steven Banks is the first saxophonist to earn a place on the Young Concert Artists roster inits 59-year history, capturing First Prize at the 2019 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, as well as the special Korean Concert Society Prize for support of his Kennedy Center debut, and many other prizes.

Zachary Lewis of Cleveland.com reviewed Steven’s Cleveland Orchestra performance as: “The suavest offering was by Steven Banks. Out of the few notes that comprise Philip Glass’s “Facades,” the saxophonist wove a spellbinding aria. The mellow, mournful line of his soprano sax soared over a gently throbbing orchestra, changing colors with every harmonic shift and bewitching listeners like the flute of a snake charmer.”

Steven was recently chosen to join WQXR’s 2022 Artist Propulsion Lab, a program designed to advance the careers of early and mid-career artists and support the future of classical music.

Steven regularly gives recitals at universities, performing arts series, and festivals across the United States and abroad, and he is also an emerging composer. Steven Banks’ music showcases “a unique and ambitious blend of feelings and sounds” and portrays “a deep intimacy” and “a sense of vulnerability” (Cleveland Classical).

This season, Steven will premiere an original composition for alto saxophone and string quartet in Carnegie Hall alongside the Borromeo String Quartet. He has also recently completed commissions for the Project 14 initiative at Yale University and the Northwestern University Saxophone Ensemble.

Mr. Banks is an advocate for diversity and inclusion in music education, performance, and newly commissioned works in the classical realm. He spoke at the TEDx Northwestern U 2017 conference on how to create change in institutionalized prejudices against women and people of color and has written and given guest lectures on the history of black classical composers.

Steven Banks has a B.M. in Saxophone Performance with a minor in Jazz Studies from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and M.M. from Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music. His primary saxophone teachers have been Taimur Sullivan, Otis Murphy, Jr., and Galvin Crisp.

Mr. Banks is an endorsing artist for Conn-Selmer instruments, D’Addario Woodwinds, lefreQue Sound Solutions, and Key Leaves.

YCA represents saxophonist Steven Banks for worldwide engagements.

Xak Bjerken, piano

Pianist Xak Bjerken has appeared with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Spoleto Festival Orchestra, Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, the Schoenberg Ensemble, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Disney Hall. He has performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Glinka Hall in St. Petersburg, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, and for many years performed throughout the US as a member of the Los Angeles Piano Quartet. He has held chamber music residencies at the Tanglewood Music Center, Spoleto Festival, and Olympic Music Festival.

He is the director of Ensemble X, a new music ensemble at Cornell, and has served on the faculty of Kneisel Hall, the Eastern Music Festival, and at the Chamber Music Conference at Bennington College. Bjerken has worked closely with composers Győrgy Kurtag, Sofia Gubaidulina, Steven Stucky, and George Benjamin, and has premiered piano concertos by Stephen Hartke, Elizabeth Ogonek, and Jesse Jones, a recording of which was released by Naxos in 2021. He released his first solo recording on CRI in 2001, and has since recorded for Koch International, Chandos, Albany Records, Artona, and has recently released his third recording for Open G Records, presenting solo and chamber works by Steven Stucky.

Xak Bjerken is Professor of Music at Cornell University where he co-directs Mayfest, an international chamber music festival with his wife, pianist Miri Yampolsky. He studied with Aube Tzerko at the University of California at Los Angeles and received his Master’s and Doctoral degrees from the Peabody Conservatory as a student of and teaching assistant to Leon Fleisher. Xak is the proud father of Misha (bassist), Anna (singer), and Maya (athlete and stargazer).