PC - Haley Freedlund
About Tom
Tom Baker is a composer, guitarist, improviser, songwriter, and electronic musician who has been a leader in the Seattle new-music scene since arriving in 1994. He is the artistic director of the Seattle Composers’ Salon, co-founder of the Seattle EXperimental Opera (SEXO), and founder of the new-music recording label Present Sounds Recordings.
“...the acoustical rendition of a Jackson Pollack painting.”
— Twenty-First Century Music
Tom’s compositions have been performed throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. He writes chamber music, opera, and electronic music, as well as music for percussion, chamber orchestra, dance, film, and chorus. He has been in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Montalvo Arts Center. His music is published by Frog Peak Music.
“Tom Baker’s music plies the shadowy territory between form, isolation, and silence.”
— The Stranger
Tom is also a scholar and researcher, and has recently presented work to the Society for Minimalist Music in Wales UK, and to the International Conference on the Arts in Society in Vancouver BC. He is an associate editor for Perspectives of New Music.
“Alarmingly restrained, yet evocative,created with great care and structured structurelessness. The space is the music.”
— ADD Reviews
Tom is active as a performer and improviser, specializing in fretless guitar, theremin, and live-electronics. “Begin Again,” Tom’s most recent album with his band The Tom Baker Quartet, was voted Best Northwest Recording of 2023 by the Earshot Jazz Festival. His electronic-interactive-arts collaboration with visual artist Robert Campbell has been featured in the MoxSonic festival in 2019, Current’s New Media festival in 2020, and in 2024 their work “Study No. 294” was awarded a top prize in the Experimental Brasil Festival, and was a semi-final winner in the Austin Arthouse International Festival.
“…a delicate, eccentric compositional sense and a tendency toward unruly improvisation.”
— Time Out New York