Violinist Virginia Baker has enjoyed a varied career which has taken her from Julliard, to Europe as part of an all-female United Service Organizations (USO) orchestra at the end of World War II, to the Pasadena Symphony for 20 years, to the San Francisco Symphony for 21 years, and to Berkeley Symphony for 16 years and counting. At numerous points in her career, she has also enjoyed the happy coincidence of performing in the same section as her daughter, Elizabeth Baker.
Virginia grew up in Kansas City, spending her last two years of high school in Philadelphia studying with Boris Schwarz, a marvelous teacher she had met at the Interlochen summer music camp who had escaped from the Nazis in the late 1930’s. She then entered the Julliard School in New York City for a seven-year graduate fellowship program, and joined the USO for a six-month stint entertaining troops in Europe.
She returned to Missouri for a teaching job at Stephens College, where she was Concertmaster in the college's community orchestra and married the first trumpet! She and Bill then moved to Pasadena, a place Virginia was familiar with as she had spent a summer at the Music Academy of the West—a stay which served as her introduction to the wonderful California summers, free of the Midwest’s heat and humidity. She joined the Pasadena Symphony, serving as Concertmaster from 1952-1972. During this time, they often passed through the Bay Area on their way to family vacation destinations, and so as soon as they put their youngest daughter on a plane to Oberlin, she and Bill made another move.
Virginia won an audition as Assistant Concertmaster at the San Francisco Symphony, and they found a nice house in Berkeley. Meanwhile, their daughter at Oberlin went on to do her master’s work at Indiana University, then auditioned for—and won!—a position at the San Francisco Symphony. As Virginia wryly noted, “It’s not the best thing to have the same job as your mother,” saying the pair was subject to a good amount of ribbing. They shared the stage for ten years, after which Elizabeth made the move to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where she continues to perform.
At the Berkeley Symphony concert on February 11, 2010, Elizabeth Baker joined her mother on stage once again, this time as substitute Concertmaster. It turns out that this was not their first reunion since their days at the San Francisco Symphony, as Elizabeth performed with Berkeley Symphony for Kent Nagano’s 30th anniversary concert (kept as a surprise from Virginia until her daughter appeared with violin in hand!). Nor was Elizabeth a stranger to Concertmaster Franklyn D’Antonio for whom she substituted, as she and Franklyn joined the Los Angles Philharmonic at the same time and had even played together in the same Southern California youth orchestra. In fact, the connections go back even farther, as Virginia and Franklyn’s mother grew up together in Kansas City!
Yet another example of the deep roots the Berkeley Symphony musical family enjoys.
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