Jen Baker | Trombone
Jen Baker, trombonist/composer and author of Hooked on Multiphonics: Multiphonics and other Extended Techniques Demystified, has pioneered a widely diverse performing career based in redefining the role of trombone in contemporary music. Hailed for her "formidable sensitivity” (New York Times), she has “performed with brilliant mastery and virtuosity” (San Francisco Classical Voice) at the International Trombone Festival (Illinois and NYC) and American Trombone Workshop (Washington D.C.), High Zero international festival of improvised music (Baltimore), ISIM Conference - International Society of Improvised Music (Denver and NYC), Adelaide Festival (Australia), Ostrava Days (Czech Republic), Ottawa ChamberFest (Canada), Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Scotland), Festival of Friendly Countries (Mexico), Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, the Whitney/Met Breuer, Guggenheim, Park Avenue Armory - including the final performance with Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Met Museum, Lincoln Center, and arenas throughout the U.S. Her music has been performed nationwide, in part by commissions by The Fourth Wall, Loadbang, and Asphalt Orchestra and also with her own solo and collaborative projects as composer/performer.
Baker is featured on the soundtrack to Werner Herzog's Oscar-nominated Encounters at the End of the World, appeared on Good Morning America, and is on record labels including New World, Innova, New Amsterdam, Cantaloupe, and her own label, Dilapidated Barns. She has toured with new music ensembles SEM, Tilt Brass, the mobile ensemble Asphalt Orchestra (founding member), with experimental theatre company Bananabag and Bodice (Beowulf:A thousand years of baggage), and various world music pop stars such as Arijit Singh.
Her recent solo project blends site-specific field recording with live performance: “Silo Songs” was recorded in a massive concrete grain silo with new multiphonics pieces in the naturally reverberant, cylindrical space. She currently teaches trombone and composition at Sarah Lawrence College and throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. Baker has published Hooked on Multiphonics for trombone players and composers to learn how to master multiphonics, where one sings and plays simultaneously through the trombone. She gives workshops internationally on this technique. She loves improvised vegan cooking (10 years and counting!), listening to animals, and long meandering walks.