JAMES BAKER is Principal Percussionist of the New York City Ballet Orchestra. Mr. Baker is Principal Conductor of the Talea Ensemble and Director of the Percussion Ensemble at the Mannes College of Music. He was Music Director and Conductor of the Composers Conference at Brandeis University for 14 years.He was the Conductor of the New York New Music Ensemble. Mr. Baker is the recipient of the 2023 Ditson Foundation Conductors Award for excellence in American Music.

This season he is conducting the Grossman Ensemble at the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition at the University of Chicago, New York City Ballet, Klangforum Wien and conducting Talea at the Vancouver New Music, Donaueschingen, Warsaw Autumn and Time of Music Finland festivals. He has conducted the Orchestra of the League of Composers, American Composers Orchestra, the Slee Sinfonietta at the Institute for 21st Century Music in Buffalo, Speculum Musicae, the New York Philharmonic Chamber Ensembles, Ensemble Connect at Carnegie Hall, the Cygnus Ensemble, the Decoda ensemble, the ensemble Tactus at the Manhattan School of Music, Ensemble 21, Ensemble Moderne Akademie, Musica Nova at the Eastman School, Axiom at the Juilliard School and DaCapo among many others.

He has conducted at the Darmstadt, Wien Moderne, Warsaw Autumn,
 Donaueschingen, Transit Belgium, Contempuls Prague, June in Buffalo, Nouvelles Voix Royaumont, Contempo Chicago, Musikprotokoll Graz, Time/Spans and Beijing Modern music festivals. He has both played and conducted at the Bang on a Can Marathon and has conducted at the Monday Night Concerts in Los Angeles and Fromm concerts at Harvard . He has conducted a number of Composers Portrait concerts at Miller Theater in New York including those of Pierre Boulez (where he led the US premier of Derive II), Toru Takemitsu, Jason Eckardt, John Zorn and Chou Wen-Chung.

Mr. Baker was for many years a conductor of Broadway shows, conducting for The King and I, The Sound of Music, The Music Man, Oklahoma and An Inspector Calls among others.