Biography:

Robert Hart Baker (March 19, 1954 – November 25, 2023) was an American symphonic and operatic conductor and music director based in Belleville, Illinois, and previously York, Pennsylvania and Asheville, North Carolina. He toured extensively, in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Mexico, and Asia. Among the many concerts he had led have been the full works of the Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky symphonies and the Strauss tone poems, in addition to most of the orchestral works of Mahler, Dvorak, Schubert, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, and Ernest Bloch.

Artists with whom he performed included pianists Joaquín Achúcarro, Alexander Peskanov, Valentina Igoshina and Christopher O’Riley; violinists Joshua Bell, Sarah Chang, Pamela Frank, Eugene Drucker, Ilya Kaler and Xiang Gao; violist Paul Neubauer; cellists Carter Brey, Yo-Yo Ma, David Finckel, Zuill Bailey and Paul Tobias; flutist James Galway; French hornist Richard Todd, trumpeter David Hickman, baritone Sherrill Milnes; soprano Angela Brown; bass-baritone Justino Diaz and many other acclaimed artists.

Baker guest conducted at Radio City Music Hall and for the Spoleto U.S.A. and appeared at Carnegie Hall.

Baker won a 1977 Composition Award from the National Federation of Music Clubs, and ASCAP contemporary music programming awards with the New York Youth Symphony in 1977 and the York (PA) Symphony Orchestra in 1986. The St. Louis Philharmonic under Baker’s direction won a 2004 Telly Award for best classical local cable TV production.^[1] Baker also performed as an oboist.

Baker was involved in several community outreach programs usually sponsored by his various orchestras. He served as a visiting professor at the University of North Carolina-Asheville, Mars Hill College, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and the State University of New York. He was also involved in outreach programs through the North Carolina School of the Arts, Penn State York, and the Logos Academy.

Baker died November 25, 2023, at the age of 69.^[2]

Education

Baker held diplomas and degrees from the following institutions: Manhattan School of Music (preparatory division – NYC) (’69-’71), Academie Internationale d’ete (Nice, France) 1970, Mozarteum Conservatory (Salzburg, Austria) 1971, Horace Mann School (Riverdale, NY) 1971, Harvard University (A.B. cum laude – 1974), Yale University (M.Mus. ’76, M.M.A ’78, D.M.A ’87), York College of Pennsylvania (Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, 1999). He has studied conducting privately with Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, James Yannatos, Arthur Weisberg, Henry Bloch, Johannes Somary, and Otto-Werner Mueller. He has also studied in master classes given by Lorin Maazel, Harold Farberman, Morton Gould, Maurice Abravanel, Jorge Mester, Sorghum Commissiona, and William Steinberg.

Credits: