Alicia Baker
Alicia Baker has been a passionate musician since early childhood. She began studying the piano at age 4, the accordion at age 6 and vocally at age 14. Alicia recently graduated from Oregon State University, and now holds a bachelor of arts degree in Music Education, Piano Performance, and Vocal Performance.Alicia has found her most tangible success with the accordion. Most recently, she was awarded 3rd place at the Coupe Mondiale accordion World championships in the digital division, taking place in Victoria, BC this past August. Alicia has also won several other International competitions, including the Happy Hans Open and the Leavenworth Open. In 2009, she won the privilege of representing the USA at the Roland International V-Accordion Competition in Rome. This turned out to be the beginning of her current relationship with Roland; one that continues to provide opportunities to share her love for the instrument. Aside from competitive events, Alicia has performed solo accordion concerts at many notable festivals. These include the American Accordion Association Convention, Cotati Accordion Festival, the Accordionists and Teachers Guild International Festival, KIOTAC, Leavenworth Old-Time Accordion Festival, and the NAMM show. In 2011, she was privileged to join the Corvallis symphony as the soloist for Nikolai Chaikin’s Accordion Concerto in B-flat Major.
Vocally, Alicia thrived as an opera student all throughout college, as she discovered a new passion. Her college operatic performance experience included the role of “Queen of the Night” in OSU’s production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute in April 2012, as well asmultiple roles in various scenes throughout four terms of Opera Workshop at OSU. Alicia performed two solo vocal recitals in fulfillment of her vocal performance degree. Competitively, Alicia was the vocal scholarship recipient of the Brookings Friends of Music Annual Scholarship Competition, in addition to winning the NATS competition for classical voice in 2012 and 2013. More recently, Alicia was selected as a finalist in Classical Singer’s National Vocal Competition.On the piano, Alicia performed two solo piano recitals in fulfillment of her piano performance degree, and accompanied many musicians and singing groups to fund her college education. She loves the art of collaborative piano, and will always enjoy working as an accompanist.
In addition to her three instruments, Alicia also discovered a passion for musical composition. She has composed many solo accordion pieces, a few piano solo pieces, and two works for choir. Alicia won the KRAFT composition competition held at OSU in 2011, and was honored to have her composition “The Unseen”, written for choir, cello, and piano, performed by the OSU Chamber Choir. She plans to continue composing, and hopes to become a published composer someday.
As a recent college graduate, Alicia can now begin fulfilling her dreams, which include promoting and sharing her love of accordion to younger generations, as well as performing on all of her instruments. She currently works for Roland Corporation, where she enjoys sharing her love and knowledge of music with others.
