VERONA QUARTET &
STEVEN BANKS, SAXOPHONE

ARENS SERIES
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5 AT 7:30 PM
High School of Fashion Industries
225 W 24th St, between 7th & 8th Aves

Virtual Concert: Mon, Dec 7 - Sat, Dec 12

Sax star Banks returns with the debuting Verona Quartet in Debussy, Mozart, and contemporary works written for them

PROGRAM: 

Debussy: Syrinx (Eros)
Mendelssohn: “Ist es wahr” (Pragma)
Debussy: Syrinx (Eros)
Janáček: String Quartet No. 1, “Kreutzer Sonata”, mvt. I. Adagio (Mania)
Mozart: Oboe Quartet (Erotoropia/Ludus)
Steven Banks: Meditation from Reflections and Exaltations* (Agape)
Reena Esmail: Magan Rehna (spiritual/Agape & friendship/Philia)
~ intermission ~
Theofanidis: Visions of the Hereafter (2024)

This program will run approximately one hour and forty five minutes with a 20 minute intermission.

VERONA QUARTET
Jonathan Ong, violin
Dorothy Ro, violin
Abigail Rojansky, viola
Jonathan Dormond, cello
& STEVEN BANKS, SAXOPHONE

BIO: 

The Verona Quartet is recognized as a premier ensemble of its generation, praised by The New York Times as an “outstanding ensemble… cohesive yet full of temperament.” Recipients of the 2020 Chamber Music America Cleveland Quartet Award and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Association’s 2025 Educator Award, the ensemble has earned a reputation for its “bold interpretive strength” (Calgary Herald) and “opulent sonority” (The Strad). The Quartet serves on the faculty of Oberlin College and Conservatory as Quartet-in-Residence and as Artistic Directors of the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance. The ensemble’s rise to international prominence was fueled by a swift succession of top prize wins at Wigmore Hall, Melbourne, Osaka, M-Prize, and Fischoff International Chamber Music Competitions, as well as the 2015 Concert Artists Guild Competition. Read more…

As a performer and composer, saxophonist Steven Banks (b. 1993) is striving to bring his instrument to the heart of the classical music world. He is driven to program and write music that directly addresses aspects of the human experience and is an active and intentional supporter of diverse voices in the future of concert music. Rick Perdian of Seen and Heard International has said “one senses that Banks has the potential to be one of the transformational musicians of the twenty-first century.” Read more…

LISTEN BELOW! ↓

Photo credit: Grittani Creative