People

Jen Baker (trombone) Jen Baker, trombonist/composer has pioneered a widely diverse career based in redefining the role of trombone in contemporary music and traditional performance settings. Featured on the soundtrack to Werner Herzog’s Oscar-nominated Encounters at the End of the World, many of her collaborations and/or compositions appear on record labels including New World, Innova, New Focus, New Amsterdam, Cantaloupe, and her own label, Dilapidated Barns. Hailed for “formidable sensitivity” (New York Times), she has “performed with brilliant mastery and virtuosity” (San Francisco Classical Voice) at festivals worldwide, as Guest Artist/Faculty at many trombone festivals, Ostrava Days (Czech Republic), Edgefest, and many others. Other performance highlights include a world tour of Beowulf (a thousand years of baggage) and the final performances with Merce Cunningham Dance Company at Park Ave Armory. Jen was featured soloist on Chicago’s Experimental Sound Studio in their Quarantine Concert Series. Her Silo Songs (recently presented by Edgefest! and the International Trombone Festival), blends site-specific field recording inside a Michigan grain silo with live performance soloist. Her earlier solo album, Blue Dreams, is similarly based on the vibration of multiphonics. She authored Hooked on Multiphonics: Multiphonics and other Extended Techniques Demystified, the first and only book that comprehensively deals with this technique.