Alan Baker

Professor of Choral/Vocal Music at Bloomsburg University since 1997, Alan Baker conducts both the Concert Choir and Men’s Vocal Ensemble (Husky Singers), and teaches applied voice, choral conducting/methods, and music history.  Dr. Baker also regularly assists the Bloomsburg Players as music director for their musical-theatre productions, including performances of Avenue Q, Putnam County Spelling Bee, Bat Boy, Floyd Collins, City of Angels, Into The Woods, and Assassins. A native of Springfield, Missouri; Dr. Baker has taught on the faculties of Temple University, California State University at Chico, Glassboro State College, and Wilkes University. In 2002, he was honored with the Dean’s Salute to Excellence from Bloomsburg University’s College of Arts and Sciences. 

In 1994, Dr. Baker co-founded the professional vocal ensemble, The Lyric Consort, with which he both performs and serves as artistic director.  Formed to pursue historically-informed performance of the a cappella repertories of the medieval and renaissance periods, the ensemble’s initial success with that music has led to a broadening of its repertoire, which today encompasses art music of the seventeenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, as well as a variety of multi-cultural and folk-based music. The ensemble has recorded multiple CDs and offers an annual concert series in Scranton. The Lyric Consort has performed, as well, by invitation throughout Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland, including state and regional conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, American Guild of Organists, and Association of Anglican Musicians. The Lyric Consort has also collaborated with the NEPA Philharmonic, Presbybop Jazz Quartet, Four Nations Ensemble, and New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1995, the ensemble was invited by the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation to join the inaugural artist roster of the touring support foundation, Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, and it maintained that membership through competitive application until the program’s closing in 2013. The Consort is also heard regularly on both the Early Birds and Music from St. Stephen's programs of NEPA's National Public Radio affiliate, WVIA-FM, and in 2000 collaborated with WVIA Public Television to create the televised concert A field afar, honoring America's veterans. 

In 1999, Dr. Baker was also appointed the first Artistic Director of the Choral Society of Northeast Pennsylvania, where he oversees a comprehensive community choral program for children, youth, and adults. Dr. Baker also conducts the organization's two adult ensembles, the Symphonic Chorus and the Choral Artists of Northeast Pennsylvania. These ensembles explore a wide range of repertoire extending from the choral/orchestral masterworks to the regional premieres of the newest music. Choral Society ensembles also regularly collaborate with the professional NEPA Philharmonic, including recent performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Orff’s Carmina Burana, and the Requiems of Brahms and Mozart. 

From 1994-1998, Dr. Baker directed the choral/vocal programs of the Encore Music Camp of Pennsylvania, and held the position of Artistic Director with The Wyoming Valley Children's Chorus. From 1999-2003 he undertook similar responsibilities with the Young Artists' Summer Program at Wyoming Seminary. Dr. Baker is a former president of the Pennsylvania Collegiate Choral Association, and has recorded for Lyrichord Records with the studio ensemble, Schola Discantus, for Stanford University Recordings, and most recently with The Lyric Consort for WVIA and Lyric Discs. He has conducted high-school and middle-school honor choruses throughout northeastern Pennsylvania, and as a pedagogue, his students have been selected to national honor choruses and conducting competitions, as well as some of the country’s most prestigious graduate programs.