BIOGRAPHY
Jen Baker
Jen Baker (Trombone) projects her trombone into the far reaches of the conceivable, redefining the role of the performer in creative music. Since earning her degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and Mills College, she has premiered and/or commissioned dozens of new works in various chamber groups and for solo trombone. As a touring soloist, she performs Lyrical Vibrations, her unique blend of composition and improvisation based on multiphonics. Her first CD, Blue Dreams (2008, Dilapidated Barns) is a collection of these pieces. She has recently performed with TILT Brass in Chris Jonas' Garden for the Intermedia Art festival in Santa Fe NM, and with Pauline Oliveros and Stuart Dempster (Deep Listening Band) for a digital simulation of the very first Deep Listening recording (done in a cistern) at EMPAC, Albany NY. As an improviser, she has performed/recorded with Fred Frith, Cecil Taylor, Dafna Naphtali, Joelle Leandre, Nate Wooley, and Damon Smith, and was featured on the soundtrack to Werner Herzog's Oscar-nominated Encounters at the End of the World. She played in the final performance of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Park Avenue Armory (NYC), and as a founding member of both Bang on a Can's Asphalt Orchestra and the musical, Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage, has toured on both coasts and internationally. She performs regularly in the New York City area with a host of classical and new music ensembles, enjoying a variety of classical, multimedia, and avant-garde music.