Tony Banks, the renowned founder member and keyboard maven of the rock band Genesis, continues his acclaimed series of orchestral compositions with Five. The suite opens with Prelude to a Million Years, originally commissioned for and performed at the Cheltenham Music Festival. Banks’s signature melodic gifts and feel for cinematic scale are all in evidence in Five, just as they were in Six (8572986) and Seven (8557466), ‘a work of stirring beauty’ (ProgSheet).

First released by BMG Records in February 2018, Naxos is proud to present this recording which is described by Stage and Cinema as ‘gorgeous, transporting music sounds exactly like a soaring soundtrack’. CrypticRock gave this recording 5 out of 5 stars: ‘Five is therefore no different from what one would expect from this artist: stunning, evocative, beautifully-orchestrated, and timeless. With five marvelous pieces of brilliance, Five is a shining gem of sonic beauty that is truly deserving of your attention and a round of emphatic applause.’

Tony Banks is a founding member of the rock group Genesis, having been keyboard player and composer through all of its various incarnations. Becoming one of the major exponents of progressive rock music in the early 1970s with such albums as Selling England by the Pound and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, in the 1980s Genesis became one of the most commercially successful bands in the world with a string of number one albums including Invisible Touch and We Can’t Dance. Tony Banks also has recorded five solo albums: A Curious Feeling (1979), The Fugitive (1983), Bankstatement (1989), Still (1991) and Strictly Inc (1995). In addition, he has also composed the soundtracks for the films The Shout (with Mike Rutherford), The Wicked Lady, Lorca and the Outlaws, and Quicksilver.

Tony Banks’s legendary status as keyboard player with the rock band Genesis and as a solo artist in his own right has never entirely contained his restless creativity, and this new suite for orchestra Five follows on from two previous projects that have found a substantial niche in the Naxos catalogue.

These recordings are always prized for their eloquent and stylish orchestrations, this time seeing Tony Banks working with the highly respected arranger Nick Ingman, who has worked regularly with the London Symphony Orchestra, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Interesting touches in Five include using a duduk for the opening of the final movement, Renaissance.

MusicWeb International accurately predicted that ‘fans of Tony Banks will be queuing to buy the album’ Seven (8557466), and the same was true of Six (8572986), which is ‘full of openhearted melody and glamorous orchestration’ (American Record Guide). There is no reason that Five, with its stellar team of soloists and the superb forces of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra and Choir, should be any less successful.