Eric Banks, D.M.A.
Adjunct Instructor, Theory, Musicianship
Conductor, composer, vocalist, and ethnomusicologist, Eric Banks has garnered significant acclaim as one of the most creative and compelling choral directors working today and for his unwavering commitment to new music for unaccompanied voices. Banks founded and serves as Musical Director for the Esoterics, a professional–caliber chamber chorus in Seattle whose mission is to perform and perpetuate contemporary choral music beyond the scope of the established a cappella canon. Under Banks, the Esoterics have won the Chorus America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming four times (2001, 2003, 2006, and 2008).
Banks holds degrees in music composition from Yale University (B.A., 1990) , as well as advanced degrees in choral studies (M.M., 1992; D.M.A., 1996) and music theory (M.A., 1995) from the University of Washington. Eric spent the 1997–1998 academic year in Stockholm, Sweden as a Fulbright Fellow.
As a composer, Banks has been able to combine his love of poetry, foreign language, classical civilization, comparative religion, and astronomy, to create a growing repertoire for a cappella chorus. His compositions include Celestial Wystan (2001, a triptych of poems by WH Auden), Onomata planêtôn (2002, intoning the moons in the solar system), Tabula siderum zodiaco (2002, mapping the stars of the zodiac), Jâvdâni (2003, setting two quatrains on the afterlife by Rumi), Sonetti d’amore (2005-2006, a cantata of Italian love sonnets by Michelangelo), Twelve Qur’anic visions (2005–2007, a dreamscape of sacred verses in Arabic), Sarasvati (a mantra in Sanskrit and English to the Hindu goddess of music), and Daman: the seven creations (a surround–sound a cappella opera based on the ancient chants of the Persian cosmology).
Banks has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, 4Culture, Seattle CityArtists, Artist Trust, and the Washington State Arts Commission. His music can be heard on CDs released on the Terpsichore label.