*MSO core musician
Emily Stromberg Baker began studying music at the age of seven in her native Connecticut. After two years of piano lessons, she began playing the cello in her elementary school’s music program, and took cello lessons with Emily Metcalf.
At age eleven, she moved to Toulouse, France, and studied with Cecile Millet. She was principal cellist of the local Youth Symphony until her return to the United States in 1991. She resumed cello lessons in Connecticut, this time with Laura Kane, as well as Eric Dahlin and Robert deMaine. She played in the school orchestra, Connecticut Youth Symphony, and I Giovanni Solisti, the premiere high school string ensemble of the West Hartford Public Schools.
In 1995 she began studying at Boston University with Mike Reynolds and George Neikrug. She was a member of the Concert and Symphony Orchestras, and assistant principal cellist of the school chamber orchestra. She also played with the Jamaica Plain Symphony and Harvard Pops Orchestra.
In 1997, she transferred to Peabody Conservatory and studied with Jeffrey Solow and Mihàly Virizlay. She was a member of the Concert Orchestra and the Camerata, (a new-music ensemble). She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in 1999 and her Master’s Degree at Peabody in 2001. During graduate school she was a member of the Symphony Orchestra, the Camerata, the Conducting Lab Orchestra and string quintet, and the Charles Street Chamber Players, a student-run ensemble.
She has been a proud member of the Mississippi Symphony since August 2001. In January, 2003, she appeared as soloist with the Symphony on their Baroque Concert. In September, 2008, she appeared as soloist with the Hinds Community College string orchestra playing the Vivaldi concerto for two cellos with former MYSO student William Walker. She has curated and performed two of a series of three “Music and Scripture” recitals featuring the Bach cello suites and is currently preparing for the third. In October, 2016 she performed at East Central Community College as part of their Cultural Arts concert and lecture series, and has worked off and on as visiting faculty at ECCC since the fall of 2017. Also in 2017, she performed the Vivaldi concerto again, this time with former MSO assistant principal cellist Janette Sudderth.
She is married to Chris Allen Baker and lives in Forest. They have one son, sixteen-year-old Aaron Thomas Baker.