Michael Conway Baker

Michael Conway Baker

Michael Conway Baker, composer, teacher (b at West Palm Beach, Fla 13 Mar 1937). Baker moved to Canada in 1958, where he studied composition with Jean COULTHARD and Elliot Weisgarber at the University of British Columbia, becoming a Canadian citizen in 1970. Although he has composed over 100 concert works and several ballets in an appealing modern tonal idiom, Baker is best known for his many film and television scores, such as John and the Missus, The Grey Fox and One Magic Christmas.

He has been the recipient of 3 Genie Awards for best film score, a Juno for best classical composition, a Gemini for best score in a television series and an award for Outstanding Success in Film Music from PROCAN (now SOCAN), the Canadian performing rights society.

Baker came to international attention in 1986 when he wrote 3 pieces for the World's Fair held in Vancouver: Fanfare for Expo '86, Discovery for the British Columbia pavilion, and Island in Space for the pavilion of the United Nations. He is the composer of the successful ballet Washington Square, choreographed by James KUDELKA and recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra. He has the distinction of being the first composer to write an original ice ballet, Cinderella - Frozen in Time, which Dorothy Hamill's Ice Capades performed throughout North America and in China.

His music has been recorded on the Centrediscs, CBC and Summit labels, and The Greater Vancouver Music Album, a lush, melodic depiction of some of Vancouver's most distinctive sights, is the debut release on the composer's own recording label Tree Top Lane. Michael Conway Baker has taught music for the Vancouver school system, UBC and Simon Fraser University. In 1997 he was honoured with the Order of British Columbia.