The Esoterics

Conductor, composer, professor, vocalist, linguist, and ethnomusicologist, Eric Banks has garnered significant acclaim as one of the most creative choral directors in the United States - for his unwavering commitment to new music for unaccompanied voices. Hailing from a small Catskill Mountain town in upstate New York, Eric completed his BA in Music at Yale University (1990), where he studied with Fenno Heath and Marguerite Brooks, and received the Vernon Prize in Composition. Eric then relocated to Seattle for graduate study at the University of Washington with Julian Patrick, Jonathan Bernard, and Abraham Kaplan, where he was honored to have received both the Brechemin and Boeing Scholarships. In 1992, while still in graduate school, Banks founded the professional-caliber chamber chorus, The Esoterics. His MM thesis in Choral Studies (1992) is a performance edition of the Dixit Dominus by Chiara Margarita Cozzolani; his MA thesis in Music Theory (1995) is a postmodern analysis of Arvo Pärt’s symphonic Credo; and his DMA dissertation in Choral Studies (1996) surveys the choral music of Mexican composer and Aztec ethnomusicologist Carlos Chávez. In 1997, at the conclusion of his graduate study, Banks was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and Lois Roth Fellowship in order to study Swedish contemporary choral culture. While in Stockholm, Eric sang with several ensembles, including the Swedish Radio Choir and the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir.

In his music, Eric is drawn to ideas that are 'esoteric' in origin, and chooses to express in his music concepts that are undiscovered, under-represented, or not easily decipherable by a wider audience. As a composer, Banks has harnessed his passions for poetry, foreign languages, classical civilization, comparative religion, social justice, and the history of science - to create choral works that reach far beyond the scope of the established a cappella canon. As a composer and choral scholar, Eric has been awarded several grants, from the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation (2005), the Cornish Faculty Development Fund (since 2005), 4Culture (since 1999), Seattle City Artists (2007, 2010), a composer's fellowship from Artist Trust and Washington State Arts Commission (2007), and two ASCAP Plus Awards (2009, 2010). Together with The Esoterics, Eric Banks has received two separate grants the National Endowment for the Arts, to compose, produce, and record his most recent concert-length works – Twelve Qur’anic visions (2005), and The seven creations (2007). In both of these works, Eric set melodies that he found in field research while traveling in Indonesia and India, including the Arabic tajwid (Islamic Qur’anic chants), and the Persian gathas (ancient Zoroastrian hymns).

In 2010, Eric was granted the prestigious Dale Warland Singers Commission Award from Chorus America and the American Composers Forum to compose a concert-length choral cycle, This delicate universe, for Conspirare in Austin. He currently holds commissions from the Boston Children’s Chorus, Cantori New York, Clerestory, the Northwest Girlchoir, and Voces Nordicae. Eric has taught music theory and history, musicianship, composition, and voice at Cornish College of the Arts since 2004. He has been a visiting scholar at the Royal Conservatory of Music and Swedish National Radio in Stockholm (1997-1998), as well as at the Cama Oriental Institute in Bombay, India (2006-2007). In the summer of 2008, Banks presented the paper Contemporary American choral music inspired by Islam at the inaugural Arab choral music conference, ASWATUNA, in Petra, Jordan.

Eric lives in the Madison Heights neighborhood of Seattle with David Gellman, his partner of thirteen years (who is also The Esoterics' graphic design guru), along with Sapphire and Topaz, their "lynx-point loud-mouths."  Eric Banks is a member of ASCAP.