The Colorado Music Festival is a gathering of some of the best orchestral musicians from across the country. Each week throughout the summer, they perform some of classical music's greatest masterworks as well as new contemporary works. The festival is known for premiering several new works throughout the summer. 

The festival orchestra will perform for the first time a new saxophone concerto composed by Joan Tower and featuring Steven Banks.

"My favorite thing about the saxophone is trying to make it sing," Banks told CBS News Colorado. 

Banks has been making the saxophone sing for more than 20 years. He's currently serving as artist-in-residence at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He's dedicated to establishing the saxophone as a central part of the sound of classical music and expanding the instrument's classical repertoire. For two concerts, he's lending his musical mastery to the Festival and a new saxophone concerto. 

"It's just so exciting to bring a new piece into the world for saxophone. I hope it has a very long life," Banks explained. 

Bringing a new piece into the world is an opportunity to dive deep into one work and develop every musical phrase from scratch. 

"We really won't even know until tonight...what it is," he said of bringing the piece to performance. 

He and the orchestra are working from a score by award-winning composer Joan Tower.

"This is an honor for me," Tower told CBS News Colorado. 

At age 86, Tower has had a long career as a composer, concert pianist, and conductor. She has been called one of the most successful woman composers of all time. She relishes the opportunity to premiere her work at the Festival. 

"This is a very exciting event for me because I have a conductor who is very excited about doing a new piece, and he's very easy to work with, and he gives it a lot of time which is not always the case with orchestras," Tower explained. 

The work is called "Love Returns" and is inspired by Tower's 50-year relationship with her late husband. 

"It's about how love comes back. There's a theme in it that's kind of recognizable that closes off each section. There are six sections," she said. 

For Banks, the form of the piece draws him in. 

"The way you start with something sort of comforting and healing in a way and you keep departing from that and coming back. I think it creates a nice ebb and flow," he said. 

This new concerto is another building block in the classical saxophone repertoire.

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Steven Banks and the Colorado Music Festival orchestra premier Joan Tower's concerto on July 10 & 11, 2025. The Colorado Music Festival runs through Aug. 3 at the Chautauqua Auditorium in Boulder.