MUSICIANS

As a Master’s degree student at the Manhattan School of Music in 1972, CHARLES BAKER won the second trombone position in the NJSO. Mr. Baker was appointed principal trombone in 1975 by Max Rudolph (then NJSO music director) and became the orchestra personnel manager in 1989 until 2003.

Mr. Baker first learned to play the baritone horn in Salvation Army bands when he was very young and switched to the trombone when he was in second grade. The son of Salvation Army officers, he grew up all over the Northeast. His first trombone teacher was Philip Catelinet at Carnegie Mellon prep school; he later studied with Emory Remington (who has been called the dean of American trombone teachers) at the Eastman School of Music and Ed Herman at the Manhattan School of Music. Mr. Baker has taught at Princeton, Rutgers, and Montclair State Universities.

In addition to his trombonist duties with the NJSO, Mr. Baker conducts the NJSO Brass and Percussion Ensemble. As an ongoing commitment he directs the Montclair Citadel Band of the Salvation Army. He has also been a guest conductor of the NJSO, Nassau Symphony, New Jersey Pops Orchestra and the Grand Teton Orchestral Seminar in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He studied conducting at Eastman with Taavo Virkhaus and Milford Fargo.

Mr. Baker’s musical family includes two brothers, both of whom play brass instruments. His wife, Michelle, is a hornist in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. The Bakers have three sons: the oldest is a drummer, the middle one is a tubist studying at the Mannes College of Music in New York, and the youngest is a high school trombonist and football player.