The Whitewashed Wall
2020

Stephanie Lamprea - soprano
James Banner - composition
Thomas Hardy - text

Premiered 22.10.2020 at Roulette, Brooklyn

composed as part of

Unaccompanied: Tiny Works for Quarantine Volume I

Released on April 1, 2020.
Recorded in Stephanie’s apartment in Boston, MA
Recorded and mixed by Stephanie Lamprea Mastered by Andrew Litts (Philadelphia, PA) Digital Art by Vivienne Frey (Tübingen, Germany)

score video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ8gO5cGEik
PDF score: https://jamesbanner.com/composition/

purchase here: https://stephanielamprea.bandcamp.com/album/unaccompanied-tiny-works-for-quarantine-volume-1

www.jamesbanner.com
www.stephanielamprea.com

The Whitewashed Wall

1-10
James Banner - double bass, guitar, video, mix, master
www.jamesbanner.com

video available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBwimKunC_Q

1-10

viola - Megan Jowett
double bass - James Banner
re-composition - James Banner

boucle

alien space sound propellant

music video: https://youtu.be/DDP-RL1L_3M
bandcamp: https://jamesbanner.bandcamp.com/track/alien-space-sound-propellant

We take off for a journey to an alien planet, but the spaceship has run out of fuel. The only way to get back to Earth is by collecting the noises from aliens and sounds of the planet itself as fuel for our engine.

Commissioned by Northern Composers Network via funding from Arts Council England, in collaboration with Make The Paint Dance, Leeds Arts Health and Wellbeing Network and Chapeltown Community Nursery 

www.makethepaintdance.com
www.chapeltownnursery.org.uk
www.uymp.co.uk/projects/ncn
www.lahwn.co.uk

James Banner - double bass, electric bass, voice, guitar, drums, electronics, additional viola, post production/composition/sampling

Megan Jowett - viola, voice, workshop direction

Declan Forde - piano samples

Children of Chapeltown Community Nursery - voices, noises, instruments, movement 

Recorded, mixed and mastered by James Banner
February-April 2022
Leeds/Berlin

alien space sound propellant

If You Desired For It, For You I Would Be Nothing, Or Merely A Footprint

chamber ensemble
James Banner
2016

Friederike Merz - Voice/Conductor
Mark Pringle - Clarinet
Paul Berberich - Alto Sax/Flute
Birgitta Flick - Tenor Sax
Héloïse Lefebvre - Violin
Ernst-Martin Schmidt - Viola
Liron Yariv - Cello
Declan Forde - Keyboards/Piano
Paul Santner - Double Bass/Guitar
James Banner - Double Bass
Ugo Alunni - Drums

Breton!!!

If You Desired For It, For You I Would Be Nothing, Or Merely A Footprint

excerpts from:

The Rungs Keep Moving
Pyramid of Capitalist System

Friede Merz - voice/electronics
Rylan Gleave - voice
Angelika Niescier - alto saxophone
Megan Jowett - viola
Nick Dunston - bass/sampler/radio
James Banner - bass/electronics/samples/composition

Commissioned for the 46th edition of Leipziger Jazztage, class-work cross pollinates a condemnatory metal and punk aesthetic with an ensemble of soloists drawn from the European improvised and contemporary music scenes. The music speaks self-reflectively about the impacts of our working class origin stories on daily life and social mobility, through investigation into poverty safari, cultural hegemony, intergenerational self and class identities, (food) guilt, personal joy and suffering, whilst words are drawn from the ensemble members, their families, social media and political commentators. The result is "an enrichment and a meaningful contribution to the class question. A topic that is far too underexposed for its always constant, painful relevance". [Tim Mettke]

Review by Tim Mettke: www.jazzclub-leipzig.de/kategorie-jaz…oo-am-safari/

(class-work premiered 25.10.2022. at Moritzbastei, Leipzig, and was recorded by Martin Ruch, release to follow. n.b. Marietheres Schneider was replaced by Friede Merz for the premiere)

photo by Lukas Diller

class-work

anti-dirge
for chamber orchestra, improviser and electronics

A dirge is most often considered to be a lamenting piece or hymn, expressing mourning or grief ‘in memory of’ the dead, after the fact, at a funeral or memorial service. anti-dirge is written as a dark and tumultuous representation of living humanity and protest against present world turmoil caused by self-serving governments, regimes, monarchies, institutions, and individuals. For the improvisor, it is also a cleansing rite and an opportunity to engage with personal protestation on a larger platform.

This piece was created through the LCO New scheme in 2022. The current version of this work presented here is created using only excerpts of a stereo documentation recording and double bass, with post-processing in Ableton. The piece is also available to perform live, scored flexibly for various ensembles, with or without soloist or electronics.

Chamber Orchestra - LCO
Improviser/electronics/post-production - James Banner

anti-dirge

Piece 1 from WOOD / GUTS [Released 22.11.2018]
Get the album:
www.jamesbanner.bandcamp.com/album/wood-guts

Elias Stemeseder - Piano
James Banner - Double Bass/Composition
Ugo Alunni - Drums

www.jamesbanner.com/stemesederbanneralunni

Stemeseder/Banner/Alunni - Piece 1

Verre

for Chamber Ensemble (2019)

James Banner - Composition/Instruments 

Double Bass
Double Bass (or Cello)
Viola
Violin (or Viola)
Pitched Objects or Glasses + Processing (2 players)

Verre

Le Poulailler
Composed for George Xiaoyuan Fu (Toy Piano)
MIDI realisation

Le Poulailler

Pizz Study 1 For Solo Viola

James Banner is a improvising musician and composer based in Berlin.
Here are compositions, recordings and improvisations.
everything else on my website

James Banner

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