Harry Baker

HARRY BAKER is a jazz pianist, classical pianist and composer/arranger studying for an MA in Jazz Piano at the Royal Academy of Music with Gwilym Simcock, Pete Churchill and Kit Downes. In July 2018, he graduated with a First-class Music degree from the University of Oxford. During his teenage years, he attained the prestigious Licentiate LRSM Piano Diploma, and was one of the first students ever to study on both the classical and jazz courses at the Junior Department of the Royal Academy, as a music scholar and first-study composer and pianist. Whilst at the Academy, Harry was a member of the Ash Quartet, a piano quartet including cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason (performer at 2018 Royal Wedding, BBC Young Musician of the Year 2016), with which he won the 2015 Procorda Chamber Music Competition, performed at St Martin-in-the-fields and St John’s, Smith Square, and featured on BBC Radio 3’s “In Tune” programme. Whilst studying at Oxford, Harry immersed himself in a diverse array of musical projects, from being Musical Director of esteemed jazz vocal group, The Oxford Gargoyles, to founding and conducting Baker’s Dozen, a 13-piece fusion orchestra. Now at the Royal Academy, Harry is excited to continue innovative collaborations with fellow jazz and classical musicians, and is thoroughly looking forward to being one of four composers accepted onto the National Youth Choir’s Young Composers Scheme, which begins in January 2019.