Eric Banks

Eric Banks, founding director of The Esoterics, earned his BA in composition at Yale University, and his master’s and doctoral degrees in music theory and choral studies at the University of Washington. In 1997, Banks was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to study at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Stockholm; there Eric performed with several groups, including the Swedish Radio Choir and the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir.

In 1992, while still in graduate school, Banks founded the professional-caliber chamber chorus, The Esoterics. Now in its 19th season, this innovative group has drawn local, national, and international praise for performing rarely-heard compositions of contemporary music for unaccompanied voices, for infusing elements of the literary, theatrical, and visual arts into the typical concert experience, and for performing settings of poetry, philosophy, and spiritual writings from around the world. In his music, Eric is drawn to ideas that are ‘esoteric’ in origin, and chooses to express and elucidate concepts that are undiscovered, under-represented, or not easily decipherable by a wider audience. As a composer, Banks has harnessed his passions for foreign poetry, classical civilization, comparative religion, social justice, and natural science – to create choral works that reach far beyond the scope of the established a cappella canon.