Bent Frequency
North American Saxophone Alliance
Saxophonist Jan Berry Baker is a native of Alberta, Canada. In demand as a soloist and chamber musician, she has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico, France, Germany, Scotland, England, Ukraine, Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic. She has been featured as a concerto soloist with several orchestras in Canada and the United States and with the National Symphony of the Ukraine.
An advocate of new music, Baker is the Co-Artistic Director and saxophonist with Atlanta-based new music ensemble Bent Frequency. She has commissioned and premiered numerous works by distinguished and cutting-edge composers and has won many national and international grants to fund the creation, performance and recording of new music. Recent collaborations include composers such as Lei Liang, Jennifer Walshe and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon as well as PUSH Physical Theater, CORE Dance Company and visual artist Craig Dongoski.
As an orchestral saxophonist, Baker regularly performs with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Grant Park Orchestra, Atlanta Opera and Atlanta Ballet and has appeared with the Paris Opera Ballet, Chicago Chamber Players, American Ballet Theater, and Joffrey Ballet. She can be heard on Citizens of Nowhere, featuring works for clarinet and saxophone (Albany Records), American Orchestral Works with Grant Park Orchestra (Cedille Label), and on the world premiere recording of The Golden Ticket with the Atlanta Opera (Albany Records). She is also featured on Robert Scott Thompson’s Folio, Vol.1 and 2 and Solace (Aucourant Records). She is currently recording a disc of new works for saxophone and percussion with Stuart Gerber.
Performance highlights from this past season included performances with Bent Frequency at the International Cervantino Festival in Guanajuato, Mexico and Tage aktueller Musik in Nuremberg, Germany. The Bent Frequency Duo Project, with percussionist Stuart Gerber, commissioned eight new works for saxophone and percussion and this project gave over twenty performances across the US. This past spring, she performed in The Innocents Project at Sam Houston State New Music Festival and toured Japan with saxophonist Masahito Sugihara. This coming season features multiple performances with Bent Frequency, including Duo Project tours, a festival of New Music from Mexico and a joint concert with the Spektral Quartet, as well as performances of Porgy and Bess and The Passenger with the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
As an educator, Dr. Baker is Assistant Professor of Saxophone at Georgia State University. She has studied with Frederick Hemke, William H. Street, and Barbara Lorenz and she holds a Doctor of Music degree in saxophone performance from Northwestern University. Jan Baker is the Region 6 Director of the North American Saxophone Alliance and is a Selmer Paris and Vandoren performing artist.
www.janberrybaker.com
www.bentfrequency.com