Diallo Banks is a composer and Hammond organist based in New York City who has received multiple commissions, awards and had his music performed by ensembles and soloists across the US and Europe including the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, FLUX Quartet, TAK Ensemble, EnsembleNewSRQ, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Yale Philharmonia, Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra, Lynn Philharmonia and been awarded prizes by the San Francisco Symphony, American Composers Orchestra and has had works performed in Meyerson Symphony Hall in Dallas Texas, the Issue Project Room in Brooklyn New York and the Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello Venezia in Venice, Italy and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” in Leipzig, Germany.
His compositional interests include sympathetic resonance, open scores, improvisation, and instrument modification. Diallo also maintains a performance practice as a Hammond organist, subverting the instrument’s status as a cornerstone of gospel and rock by implementing noise techniques and DIY electronics to push the Hammond into uncharted territory while affirming it as a sonic signifier of Blackness.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from the Conservatory of Music at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, and a Master of Music from the Yale School of Music, where he was a recipient of the Lori Laitman Fellowship and studied under Martin Bresnick, Katherine Balch, Christopher Theofanidis, and David Lang. Diallo is currently based in New York City, where he is completing his Doctorate of Musical Arts in Composition at Columbia University, studying under George Lewis. In his free time, Diallo loves reading literature, collecting records, vegan cooking, and baking sourdough bread.
Diallo Banks | composer 