By Holli LeMarr
Staff Writer
“In all of my teaching, parenting and living, I would like to be remembered as helping others to enjoy life with the enrichment of music.”
Those were the words of pianist Sara Banta, recently promoted to a full music professorship at Pepperdine.
“Music is another dimension,” Banta added. “It speaks in languages well beyond words.”
Banta began playing piano at 5 years old. She grew up in Indiana and received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in piano performance with a minor in woodwinds and theory from Indiana University.
“I can’t remember when I didn’t love music,” Banta said. “It was my luck to live in a town which had one of the greatest music schools in the world. Indiana University really set me for life.”
Banta worked on her doctorate in accompanying and collaborative arts at the University of Southern California. Her involvement in the opera program was the beginning of her 15-year career at Pepperdine. When Banta reflects on her past, she feels she has purposely been led to Pepperdine.
“I was looking for a nice place to plant myself,” Banta said. “Call it divine guidance, but I ended up in Malibu. I got the call from Pepperdine shortly after I moved here. It has been a happy accident.”
Banta now teaches piano accompanying plus a variety of ensembles including string, brass and woodwind.
“Accompanying and collaborative arts is a very practical field,” Banta said. “Very few people make it as a soloist. When you make music with other people you become a better musician.”
The best part of teaching for Banta is the students.
“I just love the students here,” Banta said. “There is something very special about them. I have found over the years that we relate and function very well together.”
Banta has been involved with the Faculty Recital Series held in Raitt Recital Hall throughout the year. All shows are free and open to the public.
“The faculty recitals have been around for years, but they have become more of an official happening the last couple of years,” Banta said. “It is a way of showcasing the faculty. The important part of the music department is for students to hear their teachers play what they talk about all of the time.”
Banta is helping with the reorganization of the orchestra. She believes that the temporary dissolution of the orchestra was a positive action.
“Complaints about loosing the orchestra were emotional,” Banta said. “We really aren’t taking it away, we are just rebuilding it in a different way. We are trying to make it better.”
Banta says that the music department is redirecting its time, money and interest on building an orchestra open to all students. She welcomes students to audition for the small ensembles.
“It depends on the enrollment this fall, but it is entirely possible that we will have an orchestra very soon,” said Banta, who is still heavily involved with the opera at Pepperdine and has written and performed music for some of the plays on campus and for the Edinburgh program.
She also participates in an array of organizations outside of the university, serving as the organist administrator of music at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in Malibu. She’s a contract player for the Santa Barbara Symphony, plays the bassoon, teaches private piano lessons and in her minimal spare time enjoys gardening.
Her family has always been supportive of her aspirations to become a musician.
“It was predetermined quite early that I was going to be a pianist,” Banta said. “It was one of those things where I was attached to the piano like an umbilical cord. I just headed in that direction and here I am.”
March 14, 2002