Claude Baker

Claude Baker (b. 1948) attained his doctoral degree from the Eastman School of Music, where his principal composition teachers were Samuel Adler and Warren Benson. As a composer, Mr. Baker has received a number of professional honors, including an Academy Award in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; two Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards; a ?Manuel de Falla? Prize (Madrid); the Eastman-Leonard and George Eastman Prizes; BMI-SCA and ASCAP awards; commissions from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, the Fromm Music Foundation, the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, and Meet the Composer (Commissioning Music/USA); a Paul Fromm Residency at the American Academy in Rome; and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Bogliasco Foundation, and the state arts councils of Indiana, Kentucky and New York. Among the many orchestras that have performed his music are those of Saint Louis, San Francisco, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis and Louisville, as well as the New York Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfonica de RTV Espa?ola, the Orquesta Nacional de Espa?a and the Musikkollegium Winterthur. Other ensembles include the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the Esprit Orchestra, the Voices of Change, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, the Empyrean Ensemble and the Pacifica String Quartet (with pianist Ursula Oppens). His works are published by Lauren Keiser Music and Carl Fischer, and are recorded on the Naxos, ACA, Gasparo, Jeann?, IUMusic, TNC and Louisville First Edition labels. Mr. Baker has served on the faculties of the University of Georgia and the University of Louisville and has been a Visiting Professor at the Eastman School of Music. He is currently Class of 1956 Chancellor?s Professor of Composition in the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, Bloomington. At the beginning of the 1991-92 concert season, he was appointed Composer-in-Residence of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, a position he held for eight years. In recognition of his contributions to the St. Louis community during that period, Mr. Baker was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 1999.

Titles:

• – String Quartet No. 3
• 1972 – Canzonet
• 1979 – Elegy
• 1980 – Divertissement for Clarinet and Piano Trio
• 1980 – POP see x642716 Divertissement
• 1980 – Divertissement
• 1981/87 – Omaggi e Fantasie
• 1982/83 – The Glass Bead Game
• 1985/1990 – Vier Nachtszenen
• 1989 – Three Pieces: for 5 Timpani, 5 Roto-toms and Wind Ensemble
• 1989 – Three Pieces: for 5 Timpani, 5 Roto-toms and Orchestra
• 1990 – Shadows: Four Dirge – Nocturnes for Orchestra
• 1993 – Awaking the Winds (Chamber Orchestra)
• 1993 – Awaking the Winds (Full Orchestra)
• 1995 – Whispers and Echoes
• 1996 – Into the Sun
• 1998 – Sleepers Awake
• 1998 – Flights of Passage: From Silent Sun to Starry Night
• 1999 – The Mystic Trumpeter
• 2000 – Symphony No. 1: A Whitman Cycle
• 2001 – Aus Schwanengesang
• 2003 – Tableaux Funebres for Piano Quintet
• 2003 – POP see x505014 Tableaux Funebres
• 2003/2005 – Three Phantasy Pieces for Viola and Percussion
• 2005/2008 – Märchenbilder
• 2006 – Lamentations (pour la fin du monde) for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra
• 2007 – String Quartet No. 2: Capriccio
• 2008 – Burlesque for Alto Saxophone, Violin, Cello and Piano
• 2010 – Concerto for Piano and Orchestra: From Noon to Starry Night
• 2014 – Hor che’l ciel e la terra
• 2014 – Hor che’l ciel e la terra (choral score)
• 2014 – Hor che’l ciel e la terra (full score/ perc. parts)
• 2017 – Annees de pelerinage: Italie
• 2018 – Canzona No. 2 from Tre Canzone: “Hor che’l ciel e la terra”
• 2019 – Tre Canzone for Full Orchestra
• 2019 – Il regalo di Fornaio: from Yet Another Set of Variations (on a Theme of Paganini)
• 2020 – Tre Canzone for Chamber Orchestra