ARTICLE: SummerFest debut by saxophonist and composer Steven Banks will salute Nina Simone
Beth Wood
San Diego Union-Tribune
August 16, 2026
The La Jolla Music Society festival, which concludes Aug. 29, will also feature the return of former SummerFest Music Director Cho-Liang Lin
SummerFest Music Director Inon Barnatan is fluidly reflecting on the past, being very present and moving forward, all a part of this season’s theme, “Making History.”
For the ongoing celebration of its 40th anniversary, Friday’s SummerFest concert, “At 40!”, will welcome back Barnatan’s predecessor, Cho-Liang (Jimmy) Lin, who will play Quartet La Jolla, a gift from legendary composer John Williams, which Lin debuted at SummerFest in 2011.
Between that quartet and a performance of a Tchaikovsky piece that was played at SummerFest’s first concert 40 years ago, there will be a California premiere. The new composition, “to be free,” by saxophonist Steven Banks, was co-commissioned by SummerFest, which is produced by La Jolla Music Society at its Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center.
This will be the saxophonist’s SummerFest debut as both a composer and performer.
This is the first time in Barnatan’s seven-year tenure as music director that he has programmed a saxophonist to grace the SummerFest stage. Although Adolph Sax invented the saxophone in the mid-1800s as a classical instrument, most people associate it with jazz.
“I think I could play an entire Bach partita, and some people would still think it was jazz,” Banks said, with a chuckle.
“I’m a tall Black man playing the saxophone, and I play classical music. I think that is, in some ways, confusing. A lot of things about who I am don’t fit in a tidy way in all the different boxes. I try to think about it less and less these days.”
Banks, the first saxophonist to receive the prestigious Avery Fisher Award, is a tireless advocate for his instrument in the classical world. He does so as a musician, an educator and a composer.
Nina Simone tribute
When Banks was writing “to be free” — his tribute to genre-leaping American concert pianist, singer and songwriter Nina Simone — he didn’t hesitate in deciding if the featured instrument would be a baritone, soprano, tenor or alto sax.
“My soprano saxophone is actually named Nina,” said Banks, a North Carolina native. “I named it after Nina Simone years ago, before I even thought about this piece.
“She’s always been inspirational for her music, but also because she wanted to pursue classical music as a young black girl from North Carolina. During her life, the world was not ready for that.
“Her story reminds me to be grateful for the opportunities that I have, because we are now carrying the torch forward in the direction that she wished that she could go,” he said.
The concert will also feature pianist Jeremy Denk, who has included Simone’s song, “Just in Time,” in his recent repertoire. Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano will provide the wordless vocals on Banks’ “to be free,” as she did at the work’s U.S. premiere last month in Portland, Ore.
On Wednesday — two days before he plays “to be free” — Banks will join the SummerFest chamber orchestra with his baritone sax for “Remade/Reborn.” The concert will feature the U.S. premiere of Concerto Conciso by noted British composer Thomas Adès, who will conduct the intermissionless concert. Afterwards, attendees are invited to the arts center’s courtyard for a complimentary glass of sparkling wine.
Banks’ third SummerFest concert, “Old Country, New Age,” will be next Sunday. He will be one of six top musicians performing English composer William Walton’s Facade. Jointly narrated by Adès and French/British conductor Stephanie Childress, this unusual piece is set to a series of Edith Sitwell poems.
During the 2025-26 season, Banks collaborated with several national orchestras on his Come As You Are initiative. When he performs in a city, he offers a free lecture-style performance to an underserved community. Attendees learn about his music and get free tickets to the concert hall.
“When we think of community outreach or engagement, we’re going into the community,” Banks said. “I’m trying to do that, but the most important thing to me is to change the actual audience in the concert halls.”
In May, Banks released his first album “Cries, Sighs and Dreams,” on Il Pirata Records. Its title comes from a quote by the French composer Hector Berlioz, who said the saxophone “possesses a crescendo and can gradually diminish until it is only an echo of an echo.”
The title also reflects the isolation and loneliness many of us experienced during and after the pandemic, Banks added. He went through a breakup and had to teach via Zoom for a year.
“I like having a dual meaning,” said Banks, 33, who is on the faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music. “I just love that Berlioz was talking about the saxophone in that way. There’s a lot of angst in it, but the overall message is that you go through all these things and then learn how to find beauty in them.”
‘Ready to go on adventures’
Barnatan promises that the two final concerts of SummerFest will be epic.
On Aug. 28, acclaimed violinist James Ehnes will lead one of the festival’s largest chamber orchestras ever. They will perform Vaughan Williams’ composition Fantasia On a Theme by Thomas Tallis.
The final concert on Aug. 29 is “The Rule of Three,” featuring trio pieces by Dvořák, Mozart, Finland’s Olli Mustonen and Pennsylvania-born David Serkin Ludwig.
Mustonen’s Triple Concerto for Three Violins and Chamber Orchestra — the last piece at the final concert — will be conducted by Barnatan. SummerFest audiences have seen him conducting from the piano, but this is the first time he’ll lead the orchestra without also being in it.
Musicians often rave about SummerFest’s audiences, and vice versa.
“I think there was a feeling that because this audience is in a beach community, that it would just want bonbons!” Barnatan said. “But it’s not true. It’s a very attentive, cultured audience, one that likes the familiar, but is absolutely ready to go on adventures.
“And at the Conrad, you can hear the performers so well. It applies to the audience, too, because it’s such a reverberant pulse. The attentiveness is something you can hear and feel.”
SummerFest Concerts featuring Steven Banks
“Remade/Reborn”
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday
Tickets: $40-$92
SummerFest: “At 40!”
When: 7 p.m. Friday
Tickets: $65-$99
SummerFest: “Old Country, New Age”
When: 3 p.m. next Sunday
Tickets: $75-$115
Where: The Baker-Baum Concert Hall at Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, 7600 Fay Ave., La Jolla
Phone: 858-459-3728
Online: theconrad.org