Snapple Theater Center, BMI Remembers Jean Banks, 3/8

Musical Theatre and Jazz Workshop members, friends and colleagues of Jean Banks, who managed BMI's jazz and musical theater department for more than a quarter century, will come together Thursday, March 8 at 5:30 PM at the Snapple Theater for a celebration of her life and her professional calling.

According to press notes, her passion for both the music and the composers defined a career that spanned more than a quarter century at BMI, and supported the careers of hundreds of our most distinguished composers. Theatergoers are invited to join for the event.

Ms. Banks, Senior Director of Jazz and Musical Theatre at BMI, passed away on February 1 in her Lower East Side home after a long battle with lung cancer. She was 77 years old.

After working as executive secretary at Seven-Arts Productions and ABC Productions, she moved on to BMI which was her career home thereafter. In the 1990s, she became Senior Director of Jazz and in the mid-90’s added the Musical Theatre department where she was administrative head of the Tony® Honored BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. The list of notable writers who learned their craft there includes Maury Yeston, Alan Menken, Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty, Michael John LaChiusa, Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx, Ed Kleban, Tom Kitt, Brian Yorkey, Carol Hall and Clark Gesner. Jean was also an officer and director of the BMI Foundation for over a decade.

Jean Banks is survived by her husband, performer Morton Banks.