Saxophonists Steven Banks and Corey Dundee are members of Kenari Quartet, a Semi-Finalist in M-Prize Chamber Music Competition at University of Michigan

(L-R)  Steven Banks, Corey Dundee, Kyle Baldwin, Bob Eason

www.kenariquartet.com

Kenari Quartet

Steven Banks

is currently a master’s student in the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music, where he is a saxophone performance major under the instruction of Taimur Sullivan. Steven has been a featured soloist with the North Carolina Symphony, the Durham Symphony and the Indiana University Symphony Orchestra. Prior to going to Northwestern, Steven attended the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he studied with Dr. Otis Murphy.

Since his solo debut with the Durham Symphony Orchestra, Steven has performed and competed nationwide. Banks has won top prizes in several competitions, including 1st prizes in the Indiana University Woodwind Concerto Competition, Joseph M. Bryan Concerto Competition and the Durham Symphony Young Artist Competition. Steven was also chosen to perform on NPR’s From the Top on show 241 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. Most recently, Steven has been selected to compete in the 6th Adolphe Sax International Saxophone Competition in Dinant Belgium in October of 2014.

Corey Dundee

Composer and saxophonist Corey Dundee is pursuing a Masters of Music degree in Composition at the USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles, where he also serves as a Teaching Assistant for undergraduate music theory and aural skills classes. Dundee was recently awarded the Grand Prize in the 2013 Calefax Reed Quintet International Composition Competition. He has been a frequent finalist for the Morton Gould Young Composer Award presented by ASCAP, has received commissions from the Taos Chamber Music Group and the UNCSAx ensemble, and has also been recognized as an Emerging Composer by the Tribeca New Music ensemble. In the summer of 2013, Dundee was accepted into the Freie Universität Berlin International Summer and Winter University composition program, where he studied composition with Samuel Adler.

As a performer, Dundee has appeared as guest soloist with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony, the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra, the Interlochen Philharmonic, and the UNC School of the Arts Symphony Orchestra. In April of 2012, he performed on stage with singer-songwriter Ben Folds at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC as a part of Arts Advocacy Day 2012. Dundee can be heard on NPR’s Telarc-label CD titled “From the Top at the Pops,” performing the third movement of Russell Peck’s The Upward Streamconcerto with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. He is also the tenor saxophonist of Kenari Quartet, a six-time national award winning chamber ensemble that was recently featured as Artists-in-Residence on American Public Media’s “Performance Today”.