Verona Quartet

Steven Banks, saxophonist

Touring Early December 2026

Project description:

The Verona Quartet and saxophonist Steven Banks will present an immersive, eclectic program that will invite the listener to explore and reflect on the various forms of love

as understood through the lens of the ancient Greeks. These include Agape (selfless love), Mania (obsessive love), Philautia (self love), Pragma (enduring love), Ludus

(playful love), Eros (erotic love), Philia (affectionate love), and Storge (familial love). The centerpiece of the program will be a new 20-25 minute work for saxophone and

string quartet written by Christopher Theofanidis, which the artists commissioned in 2024. The rest of the program will be built around the types of love that he will explore in his piece.

To ground and guide the audience, the program will be bound together by a series of guided meditations that will lead the listener to realize the vital importance of self-love.

Dialogismós: A meditation in music

Debussy: Syrinx (Eros), 3’ (offstage prelude)

Mendelssohn: “Ist es wahr” (Pragma), 2’

Debussy: Syrinx (Eros), 3’

Janáček: String Quartet No. 1, “Kreutzer Sonata”, mvt. I. Adagio (Mania), 4’

Mozart: Oboe Quartet (Erotoropia/Ludus), 15’

Steven Banks: Meditation from Reflections and Exaltations* (Agape), 9’

Reena Esmail: Magan Rehna (spiritual/Agape & friendship/Philia), 6’

**intermission**

Christopher Theofanidis: Visions of the Hereafter (2024), 25’

*This is the third movement of a new piece of Steven Banks composed in 2024 and

dedicated to the memory of Geoff Nuttall.