Steven Banks, hailed by The Washington Post as “the saxophone’s best friend, fiercest advocate and primary virtuoso in the classical realm,” is a groundbreaking performer, composer, and champion of the saxophone in classical music.

In the 2025–26 season, he performs with the St. Louis, Indianapolis, Oregon, and makes European debuts with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. He has previously appeared with the Cleveland, Boston, Seattle, and Pittsburgh symphonies, among others. Banks is committed to creating new works for saxophone, and in addition to Billy Childs’ Diaspora, written for Banks and commissioned by a historic consortium of ten orchestras, this season he will premiere Joan Tower’s concerto Love Returns. Banks collaborates frequently with the Verona, Miró, and Kenari Quartets and appears on major concert series. As a composer, his works- such as Through My Mother’s Eyes (commissioned by the Chicago Symphony for Hilary Hahn)- have earned critical acclaim.

Dedicated to equity in classical music, he founded Come As You Are, promoting inclusion and access. The first saxophonist to win an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the YCA Susan Wadsworth International Auditions, Banks founded the saxophone program at the Cleveland Institute of Music and teaches at University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He endorses Conn-Selmer and D’Addario Woodwinds.