BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND MySpace 2.0 Layouts »

Samstag, 28. April 2012

Tony Banks

Tony Banks has already written a much admired orchestral work called "Seven: A Suite for Orchestra", which was praised for its ‘genuine melodic gift’.
His new work "Six Pieces For Orchestra" consists of six songs without words which may evoke in the listener ideas of seduction, journey, hero, quest, decision and goal. Two of the pieces feature solo instruments – alto saxophone on Siren and violin on Blade – played here by elite soloists, which mesh into Banks’s orchestral tapestry with bewitching effect. The remaining pieces reveal his outstanding lyrical gifts and total command of musical narrative.


Tony Banks is a founding member of Genesis along with Mike Rutherford, Peter Gabriel and Anthony Phillips and, after a few incarnations, the band evolved further with the introduction of Phil Collins, and with Steve Hackett who replaced Phillips.
Genesis became one of the major exponents of progressive rock music in the early seventies, and after Peter Gabriel left the band in 1975, they went on to become one of the most commercially successful bands of the 1980s and 1990s with albums such as Duke and We Can’t Dance. Tony Banks has pioneered many unique keyboard and synthesiser sounds throughout his career. Music historian Wayne Studer referred to him as “the most tasteful keyboardist of prog rock”.

Tony Banks composed the soundtrack for The Shout (1978) (with Mike Rutherford), starring Alan Bates, Lorca and the Outlaws (1984), and Quicksilver (1986), starring Kevin Bacon. The music from these two latter films ended up on an album entitled Soundtracks (1986). When Michael Winner invited Tony Banks to write the score for his film The Wicked Lady (1983), starring Faye Dunaway, it gave him the opportunity to work with an orchestra, which he had not experienced before. In 2004, as a result of that experience, Tony Banks was inspired to record his first orchestral album Seven: A Suite for Orchestra with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.