Zane Banks (born 1986) is an Australian

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

ist from

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, who plays both classical and

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

s in a variety of musical genres. Banks premiered the 1-hour long solo electric guitar work, ''Ingwe'', by composer

Georges Lentz Georges Lentz is a contemporary composer and sound artist, born in Luxembourg in 1965 and that country's internationally best known composer. Since 1990, he has been living in Sydney, Australia. Despite his relatively small output and his reclus ...

Biography

Zane Banks was born in 1986, and both his parents are music teachers. He attended

Newtown High School of the Performing Arts The Newtown High School of the Performing Arts is a government-funded co-educational comprehensive and specialist secondary day school in the suburb of Newtown in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is among a small number of performing a ...

. Subsequently, he completed a Bachelor of Music degree with First Class Honours on the classical guitar at the

Sydney Conservatorium of Music The Sydney Conservatorium of Music (formerly the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music and known by the moniker "The Con") is a heritage-listed music school in Macquarie Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the old ...

with Gregory Pikler and

Phillip Houghton Phillip Houghton (26 April 1954 – 30 September 2017) was an Australian classical guitarist and composer. Born in Melbourne, he began studying music at the age of 20 at Melba Conservatorium of Music. After a year, he then began studying privately ...

. He completed a Doctorate in Music under the supervision of

Richard Toop Richard Toop (1945 – 19 June 2017) was a British-Australian musicologist. Toop was born in Chichester, England, in 1945. He studied at Hull University, where his teachers included Denis Arnold. In 1973 he became Karlheinz Stockhausen's teachi ...

and

Matthew Hindson Matthew John Hindson AM (born 12 September 1968) is an Australian composer. Biography Matthew Hindson was born in Wollongong, New South Wales, in 1968. He studied composition at the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne with composers including ...

. Banks is active within the Australian contemporary music scene and promotes the status of the electric guitar as a virtuosic concert hall instrument. Zane Banks premiered the 1-hour long solo electric guitar work, ''Ingwe'', by composer

. Banks first performed ''Ingwe'' in its original version at the Rainy Days Festival for contemporary music at

Philharmonie Luxembourg The Philharmonie Luxembourg, also known officially as the Grande-Duchesse Joséphine-Charlotte Concert Hall (french: Salle de concerts grande-duchesse Joséphine-Charlotte, german: Konzertsaal Großherzogin Joséphine-Charlotte), is a concert hal ...

in December 2007 and has since performed the work at various international festivals (Melbourne Festival, Vale of Glamorgan Festival UK, Amsterdam Electric Guitar Festival) as well as recording it for

Naxos Records Naxos comprises numerous companies, divisions, imprints, and labels specializing in classical music but also audiobooks and other genres. The premier label is Naxos Records which focuses on classical music. Naxos Musical Group encompasses about 1 ...

. Banks maintains a career as a performer in

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while the ...

and (mainly contemporary)

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

. He has performed with ensembles and at festivals,

ISCM The International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) is a music organization that promotes contemporary classical music. The organization was established in Salzburg in 1922 as Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM) following the ...

World Music Days Festival, Rainy Days New Music Festival,

Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra The Opera Australia Orchestra (based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) is a full-time salaried orchestra, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Opera Australia. It is one of three salaried orchestras in Sydney, along with the Sydney Symphony Orches ...

Melbourne International Arts Festival Melbourne International Arts Festival, formerly Spoleto Festival Melbourne – Festival of the Three Worlds, then Melbourne International Festival of the Arts, becoming commonly known as Melbourne Festival, was a major international arts festi ...

, Chronology Arts Ensemble, Sydney Conservatorium's Modern Music Ensemble,

Eminence Symphony Orchestra The Eminence Symphony Orchestra founded in Sydney, Australia is an independent symphony orchestra which delves into the classical music featured in video games and anime, as well as film scores. History Eminence was founded in 2003 by a smal ...

and in his own bands The Vandemonians and Maharani Cantus. In December 2011, Zane Banks was voted Best Newcomer in the 2011 Limelight magazine awards.

References

External links

Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Banks, Zane 1986 births Australian male composers Australian composers Australian guitarists Australian classical guitarists Australian male guitarists Living people 21st-century guitarists 21st-century Australian male musicians 21st-century Australian musicians