Today we’d like to introduce you to Renee Baker, Chicago Modern Orchestra Project, Wabi House Media.
Renee’ Baker is founding music director and conductor of the internationally acclaimed Chicago Modern Orchestra Project (CMOP), a polystylistic organization that grew from the plums of classical music as well as jazz. A member of the world renown collective Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), there are few barriers to the creative turns of this composer, conductor, artist, and instrumentalist. An expert at ensemble development and training, Renee’ developed the Mantra Blue Free Orchestra (Chicago), PEK’ Contemporary Project (Berlin), the progenitor of Bleueblue Walkers/Bass Kollektief, Twilight Struggles (Berlin) as well as being involved in starting over 20 cutting edge new music ensembles.
Among them: TUNTUI, Wrinkled Linen, Chocolate Chitlin’ Caucus, Red Chai Watch, FAQtet, Project 6, Renee’ Baker’s AWAKENING, Baker ArTet, a Butoh ensemble BODY STRATA, and Strings Attached. Ms. Baker has performed globally from Bimhuis (Amsterdam) to Symphony Center (Chicago) and was a founding member as well as Principal Violist of Chicago Sinfonietta for 26 years
Ms. Baker has composed over 2000 works for ensembles ranging from pieces for solo instruments, ballet, opera to large orchestral works that bridge the classical, jazz and creative music genres. Her ability to embrace various creative parameters in her work has led to commissions for the Chicago Sinfonietta, Berlin International Brass, PEK’ Contemporary Project, and Dance Wright Project, among others.
As a disruptive force in composition, Ms. Baker’s eclectic visual score compositions led her to create a gestured conducting language she calls CCL/FLOW (Cipher Conduit Linguistics), which she employs when working with numerous cutting-edge groups in Cologne, Berlin, Netherlands, London, Chicago, Portland (OR), and other ensembles around the world.
Aspects of the art world permeate Ms. Baker’s work. Her performance art work SUNYATA:TOWARDS ABSOLUTE EMPTINESS will premiere at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA, Chicago) in May 2015, and her tactile score sculpture works were featured at the MCA Chicago as part of the Sunyata premiere. Ms. Baker is the composer of four operas/ performance art systems.
Her current opera projects include:
Hiding Inside the Invisible, Night Waters of Distant Ever now, Struggles of Emima DuBuffet, Blubutoh, Vagabonds/Nomads and old people, Salon des Refuses, bluSamsara, Maya Redlove, Kaidan, Kantan, Sotoba Komachi, Inhale/Exhale, Narrow Road, Ikiru, Delta of Venus/Little Birds, Sunyata and Damask Drum.
Currently she is working as a film score composer, having composed and released a new score for Oscar Michaeux’s “race film” masterpiece BODY AND SOUL (1925) with the music performed by her Chicago Modern Orchestra Project ensemble. To date, Ms. Baker has scored approx. 200 films, mostly full length under her Bryn indie Film Society umbrella’s FLUX cinema EXPERIMENTS component. In addition, for the purposes of art sound installations, she has composed and rendered 21 films called OUTEREXTREMIA series.
A further aspect of her composition skills is the development of her painted score Exploratorium pieces for ensembles of variable sizes. Ms. Baker is also in demand as a lecturer and expert in nontraditional composition techniques, as well as large ensemble “comprovisation”/ improvisation development. In November/December 2016, Ms. Baker will present her PAINTED SCORE EXPLORATORIUM: graphic score novel series in exhibit at the Bronzeville Artist Lofts, Phantom Gallery Chicago, displaying 40+ bound and painted graphic score novels, with a selection to be performed live during the two-month installation/residency.
Painted Score Exploratorium moves to Woodland Pattern in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in April 2018 for a 2-month solo exhibit and performance. Called the latest AACM visionary by Downbeat Magazine, Ms. Baker is one of the brightest and most fertile minds in active in contemporary composition today.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
One word to describe Renée Baker. The words “polyproductive” and “prolific” can also be used to describe Ms. Baker, founder and music director of the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project. During the final months of the 2012/2013 season Ms. Baker conducted the premieres of three original compositions inspired by the life and work of Mark Rothko and recently received the Charles E. Walton Black Music Month Award from Chicago’s Vivian G. Harsh Society.
Renee Baker is a very active figure in the cultural life of Chicago, having been a member of the Chicago Sinfonietta since 1987 and having appeared as soloist, chamber musician and orchestral musician throughout Chicago, including a Ravinia debut as viola soloist in Strauss’ Don Quixote, partnering with John Sharp, cellist of Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In tandem with her career performing “traditional classical music”, Ms. Baker has been making great strides both as a conductor and as a composer of modern music.
Ms. Baker is a person who maintains a deep sense of reverence to those who were influential in her development as an artist. “I am incredibly grateful to Paul Freeman for serving as a stalwart mentor to me as a conductor, composer and musician,” she said. “I was groomed over 25 years in the Chicago Sinfonietta – Paul first hired me as a violist in the orchestra in 1987 when it was founded and was the first conductor both to ask for and premiere two symphonies that I had written.”
Those premieres include the October 2010 world premiere of Ms. Baker’s “Sundown’s Promise” – a thirteen section works inspired by the Japanese rice harvest and spotlighted by Japanese Taiko drums – and the May 2011 premiere of “Divertimento Notte blu” for Orchestra and six jazz soloists. Commissioned by the Chicago Sinfonietta, both works received great critical acclaim, and the May 2011 premiere of “Divertimento Notte blu” marked another high point in Ms. Baker’s steadily growing career, as it was in that performance that she made her Symphony Center debut as a conductor of the Chicago Sinfonietta.
To have been the recipient of such a tremendous opportunity from a mentor was indescribable for Ms. Baker, as both premieres took place during Maestro Freeman’s final season as music director of the orchestra that he founded. Symbolically, one could refer to that season as Mr. Freeman’s “passing the baton” to an emerging visionary. It was also during the 2010/2011 season that Ms. Baker was hailed as “the latest AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) visionary” by Downbeat Magazine.
Renee Baker is definitely riding a wave, becoming one of the influential and important proponents of modern music of the twenty-first century. In recent years, new music ensembles including Washington DC’s Great Noise Ensemble, the International Contemporary Ensemble and three-time Grammy Award winning Eighth Blackbird (also based in Chicago) have captured the attention of concertgoers and musicians worldwide. Renee Baker and the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project are soon to join the ranks of the aforementioned ensembles, as CMOP is now positioned to establish a true international presence and reputation the go-to orchestra both for new music and for composers of color.
The reverence that Ms. Baker holds for her mentors is in tandem with her insatiable curiosity. “About seven years ago I started looking at both the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the American Composers Orchestra, as I wondered if both those groups and orchestras that programming were ‘traditional classical music’ were attracting audiences for modern music.” Continuing, she shared that in the formative years of the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project she purposefully sought out people who were at the top of their game and who had an authentic interest in what she was trying to learn. “These people, some of the most foremost jazz and creative musicians – including composer and MacArthur Foundation Fellowship recipient Anthony Braxton and flutist/composer and Doris Duke artist Nicole Mitchell – were able to answer the questions that I had.”
The Chicago Modern Orchestra Project is a special ensemble in many ways. “I believe in inclusion,” Renee said, “and many of these people are people that I have been grooming since 1991. We have managed to marry the best of traditional classical musicians and the best of the avant-garde jazz players in Chicago, and we’re rapidly increasing our reach outside of the United States. CMOP’s roster includes musicians who are also members of the Chicago Sinfonietta, and freelance with the Chicago Lyric Opera, Chicago Symphony, Chicago Opera Theatre, Joffrey Ballet Orchestra and many other fine ensembles. This is why we can do absolutely authentic presentations of classical music, jazz and modern concert music. I am able to get a flavor that most ensembles are not able to.” With CMOP, Ms. Baker has shown herself to be a leader in developing true orchestral diversity, as no other orchestra in the United
States can boast the authentic inclusiveness of the ensemble in both musical expertise and demographic: in addition to being an awesome mix of classical and jazz musicians, CMOP membership is a true reflection of our nation’s ethnic diversity.
“During our first season, we presented a total of fifteen concerts including both large ensemble concerts and smaller community concerts. The ensemble has performed at both Dominican University and the South Shore Cultural Center, and our first ‘laboratory’ was held at Velvet Lounge.” Ms. Baker’s belief in inclusion pervades the work of the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project, as CMOP has since its inception premiered an average of ten works each season, including compositions by Ms. Baker and others received through the ensemble’s open score project. “It is truly wonderful not only to have created an opportunity to continuously hone my skills as a composer, but also to constantly introduce fresh music to our audience.”
Ms. Baker’s reach as composer has grown steadily over many years. Her works have been performed by groups including the Chicago Sinfonietta Chamber Ensemble, Southeast Symphony. Anything is possible, with study and perseverance.
In your view, what is the biggest issue artists have to deal with?
Financing in order to have creative time, it’s also tempting to keep looking left and right to see what others are doing just do your grind.
Contact Info:
- Address: Renee’ Baker
Chicago Modern Orchestra Project - Website: https://www.reneebakercomposer.net/
- Email: reneebaker@comcast.net
Image Credit:
Michael S Baker
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