Saxophonist-composer Steven Banks takes classical saxophone center stage with debut album, Cries, Sighs, and Dreams (May 8)
(April 2026) — An artist with “the potential to be one of the transformational musicians of the 21st century” (Seen and Heard International), saxophonist and composer Steven Banks is on twin missions to foreground his instrument within, and to diversify, the classical music world. The first saxophonist to be recognized with an Avery Fisher Career Grant, Banks makes his duo and compositional album debuts with Cries, Sighs, and Dreams, due for digital release by Il Pirata Records on May 8. Drawing inspiration from Berlioz’s poetic description of the saxophone’s ability to capture the furthest reaches of audible sound through “cries, sighs, and dreams,” the recording celebrates the full expressive range of the saxophone family – soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone – through works by Saint-Saëns, Creston, Carlos Simon, and Banks himself, who performs in collaboration with his longtime recital partner, pianist Xak Bjerken, and the two-time Grammy-nominated Dover Quartet.
Click here to stream “Cries, Sighs, and Dreams.”
Banks: an artist with twin missions, to center the saxophone & diversify classical music
Steven Banks is committed to diversifying the field of classical music, in terms of who performs it, who attends those performances, whose music is studied, and whom this music represents. He himself was raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he first started playing the saxophone in middle-school band. It was not until later, however, that he recognized the instrument’s importance to him. He recalls:
“I got serious about the saxophone during my sophomore and junior years of high school. That’s when I met my teacher, Taimur Sullivan – he came to our band class and played to us. I hadn’t heard classical saxophone before that, and it bowled me over.”
Banks found himself drawn not only to the capabilities of his instrument, but also to those of classical music itself. As he recently told the San Francisco Classical Voice:
“I really liked the idea of being able to learn more about the form and the construction of the music, and to find a freedom within that structure, as opposed to improvising. I still really enjoy jazz and love listening to it, but in terms of performing and composing, classical music just always felt like my natural way of being.”
Surrounded as a child by Motown, Gospel, and R&B, there was nothing unusual to Banks about writing one’s own music as well as playing it. Taking this same holistic approach to classical music, he has distinguished himself variously as a soloist, chamber artist, composer, and educator. The first exponent of his instrument to be recognized with a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and the first to be awarded First Prize at the Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions, he has premiered and toured new concertos by Grammy-winners Billy Childs and Joan Tower and has appeared with such prominent ensembles as The Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic under the leadership of conductors including Stéphane Denève, Manfred Honeck, Rafael Payare, and Xian Zhang. As a founding member of the all-saxophone Kenari Quartet, Banks took First Prize at the inaugural M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition and two silver medals at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. Released on the Naxos label, the group’s first recording, French Saxophone Quartets, was celebrated for its “exceptional balance, blend, clarity, and control with superb technique, outstanding teamwork, and skillfully nuanced phrasing” (American Record Guide). Banks’s own music has been commissioned by organizations including the La Jolla Music Society, Chamber Music Northwest, and Chamber Music Tulsa, as well as by distinguished artists such as Hilary Hahn and the St. Lawrence String Quartet, and he looks forward to upcoming performances of his works by both the Seattle and Cincinnati Symphonies. As an educator he serves on the Conservatory Saxophone and Chamber Music Faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and is set to join the University of North Carolina School of the Arts’ School of Music as saxophone faculty on August 1 of this year.
Richie Hawley, the founding president of Il Pirata Records, reflects:
“It would be easy, and therefore insufficient, to say that Steven Banks is among the finest living composers, or among the most compelling soloists of our time. Both are true, and yet neither quite captures the uniqueness of it – that convergence of authorship and voice, of imagination and execution, that history has always treated as something close to sacred. … When an artist like Banks collapses the distance between composition and performance, between idea and sound, the only response is to follow, bringing his artistic vision to life with the far-reaching scope of a recording.”
Cries, Sighs, and Dreams
Cries, Sighs, and Dreams marks Banks’s recording debut as both duo artist and composer. In a note about the album, he recounts the story behind its name, and explains why Berlioz’s words continue to resonate with him so deeply:
“When Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone, first arrived in Paris in summer 1842, he invited composer Hector Berlioz to inspect a prototype of his new instrument. Berlioz was impressed, writing, ‘It cries, sighs, and dreams. It possesses a crescendo and can gradually diminish its sound until it is only an echo of an echo of an echo – until its sound becomes crepuscular.’ A few years later, he repeated his praise of the instrument, writing in Le Journal des débats, ‘I know of no other instrument that possesses this particular capacity to reach the outer limits of audible sound.’ These words were immediately imprinted on my heart upon first reading them. I feel deeply grateful to Berlioz for conveying how I have always thought of my instrument and its ability to express the deepest outpourings of the soul.”
He adds:
“I think the saxophone is often viewed as a fun, frivolous instrument, and much of the time in my career leading up to this release has been about trying to enrich and deepen people’s perspective on what the saxophone can bring to the table expressively. Even in the most beautiful music on this album, there is an undercurrent of defiance, or wanting to prove or reconcile something.”
Each of the six works on the album has its own distinct character. Even Banks’s own three compositions are notably different from one another, being driven primarily by their emotional content, rather than adhering to any one musical style. The recording opens with his Surrender (2024) for alto saxophone and piano, which he describes as “a reflection on releasing the illusion of control.” Having curated the album thoughtfully, he chose this short, accessible meditation to help foster a mindset receptive to the works that follow. The first of these is also the earliest on the program: Camille Saint-Saëns’s elegant Oboe Sonata in D (1921), written to expand the oboe repertoire during the final year of the French composer’s long and remarkable career. Banks performs this work on soprano saxophone, followed by a foundational pillar of the classical saxophone literature: the Sonata for E-flat Saxophone (1939) by Paul Creston, the entirely self-taught Italian American composer whose honors included a Guggenheim Fellowship and the New York Music Critics’ Circle Award. Banks explains:
“Creston’s sonata is most often performed in a pedagogical or evaluative context. My hope with this recording is to advocate for his work as a mature and worthy addition to the classical repertoire by offering an interpretation that focuses on the piece as a whole.”
Scored for alto saxophone and string quartet, Banks’s title track, Cries, Sighs, and Dreams (2022), was composed in response to the pandemic. He writes:
“Cries, Sighs, and Dreams is a musical expression of my personal experience with loneliness and isolation. … Even though writing this piece was a very personal, inward process, it has helped me realize that the act of searching for peace amidst pain is undoubtedly universal.”
He completes the recording with two works originally written for his Young Concert Artists (YCA) recital debut, at which he and Bjerken gave their world premiere performances. The first is his own Come As You Are (2020) for tenor saxophone and piano. Characterized by Banks as “a love letter and plea for connection to my family and the community I grew up in,” the piece represents a cornerstone of his career to date. He says:
“In the environment I grew up in, there was a sense that classical music wasn’t for us. In this piece, my intention was to allow as many people as possible to see themselves represented in the music, and to feel a sense of ownership as they listen.”
Widely performed by saxophonists around the world, and now also arranged for full orchestra, the work was warmly welcomed by the classical press. As Cleveland Classical observes:
“Come As You Are … offers a unique and ambitious blend of feelings and sounds: a deep intimacy, a Romantic-style flourish, the dramatic flair of gospel music, and a sense of vulnerability that comes through in the history of the spirituals.”
The album concludes with hear them (2020) for baritone saxophone and piano, commissioned for Banks by YCA and Washington Performing Arts from Grammy-nominated composer Carlos Simon, who currently serves as both the Kennedy Center’s Composer-in-Residence and the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s inaugural Composer Chair. Banks recalls:
“Carlos and I first met at the University of Miami in 2018, when I knew him primarily as a band composer. Later, when he expressed interest in writing for me, I thought it was a natural fit.”
Composed, like Cries, Sighs, and Dreams, during the pandemic, hear them draws inspiration from communication by contemporary American poet Nayyirah Waheed. Simon says:
“I have been constantly aware of the presence of my ancestors in my life. The benevolent forefathers and foremothers are there to help, guide and assist. This piece is inspired by a poem by Nayyirah Waheed, which simply asks the ancestors to speak louder if you cannot ‘hear them.’”
* * * * *
Banks’s collaborative partner, pianist Xak Bjerken, plays an integral part on the recording, not only performing in all five works for saxophone and piano but also taking part in post-production decision-making about the final sound. He and Banks have been close friends and colleagues since 2019, appearing together in recital at venues including the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Merkin Hall in New York City, and Davies Hall in the San Francisco Symphony’s Spotlight Series. Bjerken also serves as director of the new music group Ensemble X, is a former member of the Los Angeles Piano Quartet, and has appeared as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Spoleto Festival Orchestra, and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. For the album’s title track, Banks is joined by the Dover Quartet – “one of the greatest quartets of the last 100 years” (BBC Music Magazine) – with whom he previously gave a live account of the work at Caramoor in New York.
About Il Pirata Records
Founded in 2021 by clarinetist Richie Hawley, Il Pirata Records is a 21st-century label for artists who envision a different future for classical music. Its mission is to translate unique performances into a recorded sound that creates an immersive and visceral experience for the listener. Il Pirata serves the composer and performer by using innovative techniques in its recording and editing process. Louder fortes and softer pianissimos are hallmarks of the label’s work. The result is a listening experience that conjures the feeling of being right there on the stage.
Steven Banks: Cries, Sighs, and Dreams
Release date: May 8, 2026
Format: digital
Label: Il Pirata Records
Steven Banks, saxophones
Xak Bjerken, piano
Dover String Quartet
Steven BANKS: Surrender for alto saxophone and piano (2024)
SAINT-SAËNS (performed on soprano saxophone): Oboe Sonata in D (1921)
CRESTON: Sonata for E-flat Saxophone and Piano (1939)
Steven BANKS: Cries, Sighs, and Dreams for alto saxophone and string quartet (2022)
Steven BANKS: Come As You Are for tenor saxophone and piano (2020)
Carlos SIMON: hear them for baritone saxophone and piano (2020)