Rusty Banks is a composer/guitarist/teacher originally from Jasper, AL, now living in Pennsylvania.
His compositions benefit from themes relating to regions or environments. For example, his composition commissioned by the Alabama Music Teacher Association's 2004 convention featured audio samples from the Cahaba River, Alabama's last free-flowing river. Another work, "Long Pine Creek: New Year's Day," uses sounds from Long Pine Creek in Nebraska. His compositions range from traditional concert music to sonic installations where boom boxes are scattered throughout a room. His music is described as thoroughly modern, yet accessible, a description he shudders at, but reluctantly accepts. His compositions may be heard on Living Artist Recordings, as well as his web site, rustybanks.org.
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Sunday, February 25, 2007
Music and Culture Topic 1:
The first work we studied in Music and Culture was Louis Andriessen’s Racconto dall’Inferno. A remarkable performance, the concert was also notable in its quick distribution on iTunes. A majority of our guided listening focused on text painting. It is easy to note that Andriessen is adept at text painting, but that leaves the following questions:
1) Does the piece have merit as music, without consideration of the text?
2) Is an experience of the piece valid if you cannot understand the text (or do not have a translation)?
Also, any comments or questions about this work, or Steve Reich’s Check it out… from City Life are welcome.
posted by Rusty Banks
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