Jon Banks

Jon Banks is a specialist on the accordion and Middle Eastern string instruments. With The Burning Bush, Dufay Collective, Sirinu and Jocelyn Pook Ensemble he has recorded, broadcast and toured throughout Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. He is currently performing with the Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments and in particular ZRI, whose gypsy reinventions of masterpieces by Brahms and Schubert have recently featured on BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction, In Tune and elsewhere.

Recent recording sessions include The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Great Wall and Simon Armitage’s Eurydice and Orpheus. Jon lectures on Middle Eastern music at Anglia Ruskin University and his publications include a book on Renaissance consort music, a chapter for the Cambridge History of Musical Performance and an article on an itinerant eighteenth-century dulcimer player in Early Music. He is currently working on an article on Turkish music preserved in historic English clocks.