Josh Baker

Josh Baker joins the Boston Symphony Orchestra as associate principal bassoon and the Boston Pops as principal bassoon at the beginning of the 2024-2025 season. A native of Boise, Idaho, Baker was previously principal bassoonist of the Florida Orchestra from 2018 to 2024. Prior to Florida, he served three years as principal for the Charleston Symphony in South Carolina. Baker has held the principal bassoon position with the Colorado Music Festival since 2022. He has also participated in the Tanglewood Music Center, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Music Academy of the West, Pacific Music Festival, and the Sarasota Music Festival. As a soloist, Baker has performed Astor Piazzolla’s Serie del Angel with the Florida Orchestra and Carl Maria von Weber’s Bassoon Concerto with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra. Additionally, He played Henri Dutilleux’s Sarabande et Cortège and Piazzolla’s Cafe 1930 at the Kennedy Center as part of the Conservatory Project. Baker is a 2014 graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where he studied under BSO bassoonists Richard Ranti and Richard Svoboda. He began a master's program at Rice University under the tutelage of Benjamin Kamins, where he studied for a year before beginning his orchestral career in Charleston. When he’s not performing, Baker loves cooking spicy foods, running, playing pickleball, and playing the violin.