Emily Stromberg Baker began studying music at the age of seven in her native state of Connecticut. After two years of piano lessons, she began playing the cello in her elementary school’s orchestra program, and took cello lessons with Emily Metcalf, formerly of the Hartford Symphony.
At age eleven, she moved to Toulouse, France, and studied with Cécile Millet of the Paris Conservatory. She was principal cellist of the town’s Youth Symphony until her return to the United States in 1991.
She resumed her cello lessons in Connecticut, this time with Laura Kane of the Hartford Symphony. She played in the high school orchestra, the 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 Michael Reynolds and George Neikrug. She was a member of the Boston University Concert Orchestra and Symphony Orchestra, and assistant principal cellist of the school chamber orchestra. She also played with the Jamaica Plain Symphony and the Harvard Pops Orchestra.
In 1997, she transferred to Peabody Conservatory, where she studied with Jeffrey Solow of the Amadeus Trio and Mihàly Virizlay of the Baltimore Symphony. She was a member of the Peabody Concert Orchestra and the Peabody Camerata, the school’s new-music ensemble, and earned her Bachelor’s Degree in 1999. She stayed at Peabody for the Master’s Degree Program from 1999 to 2001, and during this time was a member of the Peabody Symphony Orchestra, the Peabody Camerata, the Conducting Lab Orchestra and string quintet, and the Charles Street Chamber Players, a student-run ensemble.
She has proudly served as a member of the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra since August 2001, and is looking forward to several more wonderful years with the MSO. In January, 2003, she appeared as soloist with the Symphony on their Baroque Concert at St. Andrew’s Cathedral in downtown Jackson.
She is married to Chris Allen Baker, news and sports editor of The Scott County Times, and lives near Lake in Scott County.
*MSO core musician