Biography
Drew Baker is a Chicago based composer and pianist. His compositions have been performed by Ensemble21, The Group for Contemporary Music, The Chicago Chamber Musicians, International Contemporary Ensemble, Cinco Brass Quintet, Ensemble Dal Niente, Shepherd School Chamber Orchestra, the Northwestern University Contemporary Music Ensemble as well as renowned pianists Marilyn Nonken and Amy Dissanayake.
Recent performances of Mr. Baker’s music have taken place at the Festival d’Automne à Paris (IRCAM), The Guggenheim Museum New York, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Music Harvest Festival in Denmark and Montclair State University in New Jersey.
Pianist Marilyn Nonken commissioned Mr. Baker’s latest composition, National Anthem. Ms. Nonken premiered National Anthem in Philadelphia as part of the Chamber Music Now! concert series.
The Chicago Tribune hailed a performance of Mr. Baker’s solo piano work ‘Gray’ as, “an engrossing meditation on the sustain, overlap and decay of isolated pitches.
Active as a pianist and improviser, Mr. Baker has played with the Chicago Chamber Musicians and is a current member of Ensemble Dal Niente. In October of 2006, Mr. Baker took part in a rare performance of Morton Feldman’s Piano and String Quartet.
Mr. Baker is a full time faculty member and coordinator of sophomore theory and aural skills at Northwestern University, where he recently completed his Doctor of Music degree in composition. He earned a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from the Eastman School of Music in 2000, and a Master of Music in Composition from Rice University in 2002. He studied composition with Augusta Read Thomas, Jason Eckardt, Karim Al-Zand, Shih-Hui Chen, and Marti Epstein. He studied piano with Douglas Humphreys and Jeanne Kierman Fischer.
Content © 2006 Drew Baker