Composer Steven Banks stepped onto the Baker-Baum Concert Hall stage Friday, Aug. 21, 2026, soprano saxophone in hand, to perform alongside the musicians premiering his new cantata "to be free" at La Jolla SummerFest's 40th anniversary season.

The single-movement work for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble, co-commissioned by La Jolla Music Society's SummerFest and Chamber Music Northwest, drew a glowing assessment from San Diego Story critic Ken Herman, who called it the "caliber of new music that defines a major festival" in a review published Aug. 23.

Banks, the first saxophonist to receive the Avery Fisher Award and a faculty member at the Cleveland Institute of Music, wrote the vocal line as a vocalise, sung on a single open syllable without text. The title references jazz composer Billy Taylor's "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free," made famous by Nina Simone's 1967 recording on her RCA album "Silk and Soul." In program notes, Banks explained that Simone, a prominent African American performer active in the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, inspired the piece.

Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, who also sang the work's world premiere in July at Portland State University with Chamber Music Northwest, delivered what Herman called a commanding performance. He wrote that her voice was "equally powerful from its low contralto beginning to its fruition in unexpected dramatic soprano territory, evoked the vocal rage of Nina Simone fused with the operatic opulence of Leontyne Price as she powerfully communicated the cantata's ecstasy and exultation."

Banks played soprano saxophone in the chamber ensemble, which also included string quartet, flute and piano. Herman praised the textures as moving between intricate modernist passages and consonant orchestral cadences.

The "SummerFest at 40!" program also featured John Williams' "Quartet La Jolla," a 2011 commission written as a gift to then-music director Cho-Liang Lin. Lin returned to perform the violin part alongside cellist Jay Campbell, clarinetist John Bruce Weh (for whom the part was written) and harpist Julie Smith Phillips.

The evening opened with music director Inon Barnatan and pianist Jeremy Denk tackling Witold Lutosławski's "Variations on a Theme of Paganini" for two pianos. Tchaikovsky's Sextet "Souvenir de Florence" closed the main program with an all-star string ensemble including Benjamin Beilman, Lin, Paul Neubauer, Teng Li, Jonathan Swensen and Nina Lee.

In a July 26 San Diego Union-Tribune interview previewing the season, Barnatan said the festival's "Making History" theme acknowledged "that history is not something that is only in the past. We're still making it."

SummerFest's final two concerts are "Conversation Across Centuries" on Friday, Aug. 28, and "Finale: Rule of Three" on Saturday, Aug. 29. Both begin at 7 p.m. at the Baker-Baum Concert Hall, 7600 Fay Ave. Tickets range from $45 to $145 at theconrad.org/summerfest.