Year in Review

I can barely mask my shame for allowing the whole 2009-2010 season to pass without updating the site! It has been one adventure after another, but here we are at Summer again, looking back on a busy and eventful year. Below are some highlights:

• On a personal note (and by far most importantly), A Bancks is Born! Hannah Rose Bancks was born October 26, 2010 (one month before “deadline”… quite unlike her father) in excellent health and growing every day. Thanks to an in utero trip to Tanglewood and a steady diet of Gregorian chant, Hannah appears to be quite musical already: her current favorites include “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain”, “You Are My Sunshine”, and “Salve Regina” (ferial tone).

• A month before Hannah’s arrival, Mass for All Saints premiered brilliantly with the Millennium Chamber Players under Robert Katkov-Treviño at St. John Berchmans Church to a capacity audience. It was a magnificent evening which also included a performance of Mozart’s Requiem.

• Mozart’s Requiem was nearly sung for me: while the concert was going on, I was in the midst of another attempt at the University of Chicago comprehensive exams. After about three weeks without sleep and a little drama here and there, I have passed my exams! Pending my dissertation performance in May 2011 and completion of my minor field (in musicology) will have the PhD by the end of Summer 2011.
• Marimbist Makoto Nakura commissioned and premiered Arbor una nobilis for violin and marimba, which was performed in major concert halls in Kyoto and Tokyo, Japan with violinist Yayoi Toda. Working with the incredibly talented Makoto (often over the phone from his studio in New York) was about as gratifying an experience as this composer could ask for.

• March brought a major premiere in Washington, DC… Eminent French tenor Arnaud Penet and the lovely Kara Morgan premiered Angelus with the Suspicious Cheese Lords at the John Paul II Cultural Center, myself at the piano. The Knights of Malta commissioned the new work and hosted the concert in high style, preceded by great solos and duets of the French repertoire.