Matt Baker
Originally from Sioux City, Iowa, Matthew Baker began his professional music career as a double bassist at the early age of 13 with the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra, first as section and later as principal double bass.
Matt leads a diversified performance career, having achieved recognition worldwide for his work in classical, jazz, folk, and theatrical performance around the world on both the baryton and double bass. He has had critical acclaim from concerts and recordings in publications such as The Strad, Gramophone, The Times, Ritmo, and Bass World, amongst many others and has had full length features written on his work in both The Strad and Ritmo.
Matt has worked with one of the world’s largest international classical labels, Naxos Records, over the last 8 years starting with the Elan Quintet in their ongoing project of resurrecting and recording George Onslow’s string quintets. Matt also published his own critical editions of these works under the publishing house of ISB Editions.
Now with the Valencia Baryton Project, Matt has continued working with the world-class label to delve into the largely unknown repertoire of the baryton - a seldom played instrument of the baroque and classical era.
As the founder of the Valencia Baryton project, Matt has performed in Europe and the Americas with this award-winning ensemble whose first CD was included in All Music’s Best Classical CDs of 2021 and 2023 list and also was in the top 20 of Gramophone. The trio has also commissioned numerous works for the instrument to keep this wonderful sound alive and relevant today.
As a barytonist, Matt has not kept to the classical side of things but in 2019 he also premiered a new genre of music for baryton with French jazz pianist, Baptiste Bailly in what was reported to be the first jazz baryton concert ever. He has later ventured into electronic jazz with the baryton collaborating with electronic artist IMGL. Matt’s work in forging new paths for the baryton has been featured by the Berklee publication Berklee Now in both 2020 and then as a podcast in 2022. Later, Matt began including his work on the baryton with other ensembles as an invited guest and can be heard performing the instrument in styles as diverse as Indian Classical, Sephardic Spanish songs, Contemporary Jazz and celtic/world music.
“The great bassist, Matt Baker”
“The chance to hear half-a-dozen examples of his exceptional handling of this obsolete and unusual instrument is an unalloyed pleasure”
Beyond his work with in classical music, Matthew Baker has spent years delving into the fields of other music genres. As a jazz musician Matt has shared the stage as both sideman and leader in formations with renowned artist such as Clark Terry, Dave Samuels, Victor Mendoza, Bob Mintzer, Jorge Pardo, Terri Lynn Carrington, Victor Wooten and many others. He has delved into the field of chamber jazz with JPMB, and had his work reviewed by the International Society of Bassists as “sumptuous yet delicate, quite unique and really quite special”.
In world music Matt worked with premier celtic harpist Catriona McKay record her groundbreaking celtic jazz fusion CDs as well as with numerous other celtic artists such as Chris Stout, Donald Grant, Mairi McInnes, Luke Daniels and many others. He toured Europe playing to packed stadiums with the fiddle ensemble Fiddler’s Bid, founded and managed Diablito Tango, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival award winning trio, and has been featured by CCTV 9 in a special concert of Chinese classical fusion at the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing. Recently, Matt has begun work with legendary bandoneonist Daniel Binelli in both trio and sextet format.
From 2002 – 2006, Matt was a member of the theatrical string septet Gogmagogs, directed by Royal Shakespeare Theatre director Lucy Bailey and performed over 100 shows around the world with this innovative project.
In education, Matthew Baker was the founder of the jazz double bass department at the Conservatorio Superior de Música in Valencia and now is faculty of the bass department at Berklee College of Music Valencia and ESMAR Conservatory in L’Eliana, Spain. He is also resident chamber music faculty at the Rushmore Music Festival in the USA.
Matt is also a member of the Orquesta de Palau de les Arts, the opera of Valencia.
He holds a Bachelor of Music from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, UK, and a Postgraduate Diploma from the Royal Academy of Music in London, UK.
Matt is an ambassador to Schertler Electronics and is an endorser for Wiedoeft Rosin.
“Matthew Baker knows how to confer a grand quality and uniform sound to the beautiful melodies of Haydn”
“Delightfully inventive”