Choir director Eric Banks freely admitted his group, the Esoterics, attracts "music geeks" because of its devotion to new works, quite often sung in non-European languages.
"The Esoterics does all a cappella music, all contemporary," said Banks. "Our current concert series is 'Amavaita,' based on a Persian word for courage."
One thing that Esoterics actively tries to avoid is "lulling the audience into something familiar," said Banks. "My whole reason for doing this is to take choral music out of the box. Most choral music is Judeo-Christian and it's mostly sacred, mostly Latin, or English translations of the Psalms or other devotional poetry."
In his own work, Banks has explored Finnish mythology, the poems of Rumi and the love sonnets of Michelangelo. He is currently working on a large choral piece based on ancient Zoroastrian chants, the first movement will be performed by the choir in July and the whole will premiere in October. Banks recently received an $8,000 grant from the Mayor's Office of Arts and Music to complete the work, the largest grant awarded to the composer so far.
"I went to India to research a Hindi composer, and one of my hosts were Zoroastrian, a sect that moved from Persia to India," said Banks. "When the Ottoman Empire took over Iran, most Zoroastrians fled to India and sent their ancient texts there, to libraries in Bombay."
Banks became fascinated with the ancient Zoroastrian explanations for the creation of the world as something mixed from the spirit of good and the spirit of evil. For the piece in the coming July concert, Banks picked on a Zoroastrian narrative where "the spirit of evil goes to confront the spirit of good, but the spirit of good gets rid of the spirit of evil by singing to it. I love that the evil repellent is singing!"
Banks also loves working with the other languages for his own choral pieces and for the pieces that he selects for the Esoterics.
"Intoning in the original language is very, very powerful. You can't get the same effect in English translations. Quite frankly, English can sound ugly, which is why so many choirs sing in Latin," said Banks.
Beginning on Saturday, July 7, the Esoterics will tour Puget Sound with 'Amavaita,' which includes three pieces from the winners of Polyphonos, a competition started by the Esoterics for contemporary choir music. The three categories in the competition are American composer, an international composer and a young composer under the age of 30.
The choir also attracts younger singers, such as Banks' Cornish students. "Esoterics is full-time work for me," said Banks, "but the faculty at Cornish asked me to start teaching some classes in musicology about three years ago. It's turned out to be really nice work."
Because of the Cornish connection, there are approximately eight Cornish students currently singing in the 40-voice choir as well as several alums.
"I hadn't been really interested in singing in a choir," said Sean Glenn, a cello performance major at Cornish, "but about three weeks into one of Eric's classes, he asked me to try it."
Ben Sobel, a voice major at Cornish, started singing with Esoterics this year "through some friends, who recommended it as a helpful learning experience."
Both students described Banks as a really good "handler" of voices.
"Because it is a volunteer group, everyone who is there wants to be performing great music," said Sobel. "We get a sound out that's pretty amazing."
"I don't like to have one row of men and a sea of women, that's not my choir," said Banks. "Instead, I like to have one voice alternating with the other. And I want to do a repertoire that shows that not all choirs are the same! So it's not just text, but texture."
"I think it's really inspiring working with Eric," added Glenn. "Sometimes I hear people complain that Eric's harsh or critical, but I think it's the nature of a choir, that you have to shed your ego and take direction. You're constantly thinking of new ways to perfect your sound."
As for the various languages sung by the Esoterics, both Glenn and Sobel agree that the ancient Persian has been most challenging to learn.
"When I'm setting ancient text and trying to get the choir to intone them in ancient sounds, we have to go over these different variances in sound. Which is really nerdy," said Banks. "But it is a choir of music nerds, so it doesn't matter. They love it."
"I think being in the choir has really developed my inner ear, not my external ear," added Glenn.
For Sobel, "the ability to work with other people to achieve a goal is really important, to try to create one voice and communicate the work to the audience."
"It helps develop an ear, not just for singers, but for the audience as well," added Banks. "We are an experimental group. And the audience who comes to an Esoterics' concerts knows that they are going to hear something new, something that they've never heard before. And it is either going to be something that they really love or they really hate."
The Esoterics perform "Amavaita" at St. Joseph's Cathedral, 732 18th Ave. E., on July 14 at 8 p.m. For information on this and other Esoterics' concerts, see www. theesoterics.org.
Rosemary Jones writes about arts and entertainment for the Capitol Hill Times. She can be reached at editor@capitolhilltimes.com.
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