Marin Women's Hall of Fame

Winifred Baker
By Barbara Euser
In conjunction with the Writer's Center of Marin

        "My earliest memory is going to sleep listening to the singing of my family's five voice madrigal group:  my mother's voice on the top, my grandfather's at the bottom and sisters and cousins in between."  Winifred Baker always knew she would be a musician.  And she wanted to be a conductor like her grandfather.  "That was fortunate," she says, "because I didn't have much of a voice."

        Woman conductors are a rarity today.  When Winifred Baker was born, just before World War I, they were rare indeed.  The unusualness of her ambition did not occur to Baker.  At age four, Baker's mother arranged for her to start music lessons.  Every one else in Baker's family had been taught by her grandfather, who was a stern instructor.  Baker recalls that, as a favorite of her grandfather, she did not know the stern side of his character.  Perhaps in an effort to maintain that happy relationship, Baker's mother found a young woman to teach music to her little Winifred.

        All the members of Baker's family were musical, except for her father, an engineer.  He took great pleasure in listening to the music produced by his relatives.  Baker credits him with her pleasure in performing. "From the very first, even when I was just practicing, my father was always an adoring audience.  I grew up expecting that people would enjoy the music I created, and they have."

        As she grew older, Baker continued her study of music.  At London University and the Royal Schools of Music, she studied advanced  music and speech, anticipating the need to instruct singers in diction and conveying the message of their music.  The vice president of the university asked Baker if she would represent the school at the Kent Festival, an annual competition.  Baker won first prize.  One of the adjudicators was the head of Cambridge University music school, Dr. Hubert Middleton.  He was especially impressed by Baker and served as her mentor throughout her career.

        At London University, Baker met a fellow student majoring in drama and fell in love.  She married the drama instructor one month before World War II blitz of London in 1940.  Their apartment was shelled.  Her husband joined the Royal Air Force.  Two years later he was killed. Baker went to Cambridge where she taught music and speech at the Cambridge University.
 
        There she met Bill, her "American husband."  He was a journalist serving in the U.S. Air Force stationed near Cambridge.  In the United States, he was the editor of a small chain of newspapers.  For several years after they met, he would spend summers in Cambridge with her, and return to Kansas for the rest of the year.  After five years, Baker determined that she could save him the commute.  They married and she moved to Kansas.  There she taught music for one year.  Then the owner of the newspapers decided to return to Kansas from Washington, D.C. and Baker's husband had to find another job.  He located another group of newspapers to run in South Dakota.  Baker taught music at the A & M college in Brookings, now known as the University of South Dakota.

        During the Korean War, Baker's husband was called back to serve in the Air Force.  He was stationed at Hamilton Air Force Base.  Thus began Baker's life in Marin County in 1951.  While her husband taught reading and writing skills to recruits, Baker searched for a job at the university level.  When she applied to teach at the University of California in Berkeley, they were ready to hire her, but a course in California history was required.  The hiring committee suggested she take the course at a local college.  Looking around at local colleges, she discovered Dominican College.  Dominican College immediately hired her to teach there.  She taught at Dominican College for the next thirty years.

        From her earliest memories, choral music was one of Baker's greatest loves.  She conducted college choruses, and, in 1961, was hired to conduct the San Francisco Civic Chorale.  The San Francisco Arts Council supported the Civic Chorale, which was the successor to the San Francisco Municipal Chorus.  The tradition of the Municipal Chorus was that all performances were offered to the public free of charge.  All you had to do was pick up a ticket in advance.  Keeping high quality music accessible to the public was a guiding principle of Baker's throughout her career.  The various musical groups Baker directed were always run as non-profits.  Ticket prices were kept low and only covered the costs of running the organization. 

        For thirty-five years, Baker never had a free Saturday morning.  Those were devoted to rehearsals of the Children's Chorus.  Baker and her husband divided responsibilities:  on Saturday mornings, he did all the shopping, and she looked after the Children's Chorus. 

        Throughout her life, Baker made a point of getting to know other musicians.  She and Arthur Fieldler became good friends.  When he made his annual visits to San Francisco to conduct the Summer Pops concerts, he asked Baker to supply the chorus for the middle part of his programs.  Part of Fieldler's philosophy was to educate the public about various types of music.  Each of his programs commenced with a classical concerto, followed by choral music, and ended with selections of popular music.  The San Francisco Civic Chorale and the Children's Chorus performed regularly under Baker's baton at the Summer Pops concerts. Fieldler conducted the instrumental portions.

        Baker was fascinated by newly written music and music which had not been performed elsewhere.  She says, "I love to read music from the notes on the score.  I hear the music as it is written on the page.  I set it to a certain tempo in my mind."  Over the years, Baker made it a point to premiere musical works during performances of her choral groups in California.  Once a year, she returned to England to visit her professor at  London University and catch up with friends including Benjamin Britten, a fellow member of a London music club.  Music store owners would set aside new works for her to peruse on her annual visits. Through her contacts in London, she located many of the works which she and her groups premiered in San Francisco, including Britten's "War Requiem" in 1964 and Alfred Schnittke's "Requiem" in 1991.

        One of her longtime friends was the conductor of the choir at the Liverpool Cathedral.  He was also the conductor of the civic chorus.  He told her that one of his parishioners was composing an oratorio.  Baker immediately expressed interest in performing the work in San Francisco as soon as it was finished.  Baker and the San Francisco Civic Chorus gave the United States premiere performance of Paul McCartney's "Liverpool Oratorio" in Grace Cathedral in 1992.  "It was like a little opera.  It was the story of McCartney's life, without much acting," Baker explained.  The two performances were sold out.  In retrospect, Baker acknowledges that she made a serious miscalculation:  they could have sold out many more performances.  The chorale's expenses were covered for two years by the proceeds of those performances.

        Not only did Baker break ground by performing new musical works.  She broke the stereotype of musical conductors as men.  She was one of the first female conductors of both choral and orchestral groups.  Baker notes that she was a member of an organization of conductors in London, the membership  composed of six women and one hundred and fifty-four men.

        Baker understood there would be obstacles to her achieving her early dream of becoming a conductor.  However, she is a firm believer in finding a way around any difficulties that may appear.  The approach is not necessarily always straight ahead, but may requires some twists and turns.  Once she decided upon her goal, she worked very hard to achieve it.  She acknowledges that she benefited from good luck.  However, she did not count on luck.  She counted on hard work.  Baker credits her success to her education and her ability to talk to people and really find out what they think and how they accomplish what they do.

        Baker may be best known for the performances of her various choral groups.  She says she enjoys the rehearsals more than the performances.   Rehearsals are relaxed.  You can stop for a moment and share a joke.  Performances, on the other hand must keep going.  The value of singing in a group is in the journey, not just in reaching the destination.

        Baker was also active in promoting the Marin Music Chest.  This fund provides three year grants to talented musicians.  By the time recipients have received the grants for three years, Baker figures they should be able to make it on their own.  Marin Music Chest also provided funds for schools to offer special music classes during children's fourth and fifth grades of elementary school.  The Marin Music Chest also serves as a source of inspiration to other groups, such as Parent Teacher Associations, to provide money to support music in the schools.

        Winifred Baker moved to Marin County in 1951.  She spent forty-eight years here, teaching, conducting, and performing music for the benefit of the community.  Hundreds of children participated in the Children's Chorus, their lives forever enhanced by their exposure to the highest caliber of music.  Hundreds of adults also sang in the San Francisco Civic Chorus, the Winifred Baker Chorale and the numerous college choruses she conducted.  She gave a gift of music to performers and audiences alike.

        In 1999, Baker returned to her native Britain to live close to her brother and his family.  Her legacy of music remains in the lives she touched in Marin.