Don Banks

Not to be confused with Don Bank.

Donald Oscar Banks (25 October 1923 – 5 September 1980) was an Australian composer of concert, jazz, and commercial music.

Life and career

In the 1950s Banks was the secretary to Edward Clark, head of the London Contemporary Music Centre.

He returned to Australia in 1972, as Head of Composition and Electronic Music Studies at the Canberra School of Music. He remained there till 1977, then had a series of educational positions. In 1978 he was appointed Head of the School of Composition Studies at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music.

Banks's best-known works include the Sonata da Camera for flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, viola, and cello (1961); a Horn Concerto (1965); a Trio for horn, violin, and piano (1962); and a Violin Concerto (1968).

He died at his home in the Sydney suburb of McMahons Point, after an eight-year battle with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. He left a widow, Valerie, and a son, Simon. The Don Banks Music Award, funded by the Australia Council for the Arts, is named after him

Filmography

Banks is credited for composing music in the following films:

• The Price of Silence (1959)
• Murder at Site 3 (1959)
• The Third Alibi (1961)
• Captain Clegg (Night Creatures in U.S.) (1962)
• Panic (1963)
• The Punch and Judy Man (1963)
• The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)
• Crooks in Cloisters (1964)
• Nightmare (1964)
• Hysteria (1964)
• The Brigand of Kandahar (1965)
• Monster of Terror (Die, Monster, Die! in U.S.) (1965)
• The Reptile (1966)
• Rasputin the Mad Monk (1966)
• The Frozen Dead (1966)
• Torture Garden (1967)
• The Mummy's Shroud (1967)

References

General

• Larson, Randall D. (1996), "Don Banks", Music from the House of Hammer: Music in the Hammer Horror Films, 1950-1980 (Volume 47 of The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series), Scarecrow Press, pp. 51–57, ISBN 9781461669845

Further reading

• Banks, Don (1970). "Converging Streams". Musical Times 111, no. 1528 (June): 596–99.
• Covell, Roger (1967). Australia’s Music: Themes for a New Society. Melbourne: Sun Books.
• David Huckvale (2008), "Australian Menace: Don Banks and Malcolm Williamson", Hammer Film Scores and the Musical Avant-Garde, McFarland, pp. 133–153, ISBN 9780786451661
• Randall D. Larson (1996b), "Don Banks Biographical Essay", Soundtrack Magazine, 15 (58)
• Mann, William (1968). "The Music of Don Banks". Musical Times 109, no. 1506 (August): 719–21.
• Sitsky, Larry (2011). Australian Chamber Music with Piano. Canberra: ANU E Press. ISBN 978-1921862403 (pbk); ISBN 9781921862410 (ebook).
• Pressing, Jeff, John Whiteoak, and Roger T. Dean (2002). "Banks, Don(ald Oscar)". The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, second edition, edited by Barry Dean Kernfeld, 3 vols. London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 9780333691892.
• Toop, Richard (2001). "Banks, Don(ald Oscar)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.

Specific

External links

• Don Banks on IMDb
• AMCOZ Web Profile
• Don Banks Music Award
• Music Australia: source the National Library
• History of British and Australian innovation, includes Don Banks ideas and equipment
• Biography of Don Banks