Don Banks
Don Banks (1923–1980) was an Australian composer of concert, jazz and commercial music. Serial craft, electronics and a lifelong pull toward jazz shaped chamber works, concertos and scores central to mid-century Australian modernism.
He treated composition as a craft, absorbing serial technique while keeping an ear for jazz colour and electronic timbre. Works that still circulate include the 1962 Horn Trio (TP114), the one-movement violin sonata on Jewel (ACD 110), and pieces such as Commentary (TP040) and Prologue, Night Piece and Blues for Two (TP004).
Sequence for solo cello (MD 3381) and the Three Studies for cello and piano (TP222) show the same taut lyricism. He helped develop the VCS1 synthesiser, later led composition and electronic music teaching in Canberra and Sydney, and argued for composers’ rights and an Australian music open to the world rather than self-consciously national.
Don Banks is featured on the following titles
Unfold: Sequence for solo cello
This thirteen-minute work by Don Banks was recorded alongside the Kreutzer Quartet’s Unfold album. Time limits kept the track off that CD, so it appears here as a separate release.
Unfold
The Kreutzer Quartet, long regarded as one of Europe’s most dynamic and inventive ensembles, turns here to four Australian string quartets from the 1960s and 1970s.
Compositions by Don Banks also appear on
Jewel
Australian gems for violin and piano. Jewel gathers works by some of Australia’s finest composers, among them Peter Sculthorpe, Margaret Sutherland, Don Banks and Vincent Plush.