Missouri Classical Music News and Notes

Joanne Johnson Baker, 81, made her transition peacefully at home on Monday, December 27, 2004. Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. on Monday, January 3, at Second Presbyterian Church, 55th and Oak, followed by a reception. Arrangements are being handled by D.W. Newcomer's Sons Stine & McClure Chapel (816-931-7777).

Contributions may be made to The Joanne Baker Piano Scholarship (c/o Linda Robbins, Director of Development, Conservatory of Music, UMKC, 4949 Cherry, KCMO 64110), or The Joanne Baker Prize (Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation, 138 West Broadway, Suite 220, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101).

One of the most beloved and sought-after piano teachers in America, Joanne knew from the start that she would become a musician. At age four, she gave her first solo piano recital in a career that would take her to Carnegie Hall and around the world.

Joanne was born on October 18, 1923, in Kansas City, Missouri, to Luella May Johnson and Franklin August Johnson. From infancy through high school, she studied piano with her mother, a well-known pianist and former head of the Quincy Conservatory of Music in Illinois.

Music led to unpredictable adventures. At ten, Joanne held her first church job as a substitute organist at Paseo Methodist Church, playing the first-ever-sold Hammond Number One (now in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington). In the marching band at Paseo High School, since she couldn't push a piano around the field, Joanne held a reedless clarinet, miming the fingering while marching in formation. She had the peculiar job of accompanying Paseo's whistling chorus and recalled the sudden danger when one whistler would get the giggles and, section by section, the whole chorus would fall apart.

Joanne attended the University of Kansas, where she met her husband of sixty years, Russell Walter Baker, Sr., who died in 2002. They married on September 15, 1942, and moved to Virginia and Maine where Russell was stationed during the war.

One stormy night in 1944, lightning and thunder tore through Phoebus, Virginia, where Joanne was giving a recital. Somewhere in the middle of Chopin's C# Minor Scherzo, the lights blew out. In total darkness, unable to see her hands or the keyboard, she forged ahead to the piece's conclusion. She couldn't see the standing ovation the audience gave her, just as they couldn't see her bow. Joanne always finished what she started.

After the war, she continued her education at the University of Michigan, where she earned her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees, was elected to Pi Kappa Lambda, and graduated number one in her class. Among her teachers were Quincy Porter, Joseph Brinkman, and Carl Friedberg, a student of Clara Schumann and Brahms.

As a young composer, Joanne wrote music for church, band, and choir, then went on to string quartets and solo piano pieces. After her piano sonata won a national competition, Joanne was invited in 1954 to play the piece at Carnegie Hall, where it was broadcast on national radio. But it was her love of teaching that would emerge as the primary focus of her career, and her students became a second family to her.

In 1948, Dr. Wiktor Labunski invited Joanne to join the faculty of what is now the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri - Kansas City (UMKC). She became its longest-serving faculty member, teaching at the school for 49 years and chairing the Keyboard Division for the last 25 of those years. She was designated a Curators' Professor, the University's highest honor.

Joanne chaired the prestigious Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition for two decades in Salt Lake City and was the first American artist invited to teach in China after the Cultural Revolution. In these and other capacities, she was an ambassador for the UMKC Conservatory, attracting the finest talent from around the world to build a first-class Keyboard Division.

Her many awards include the Burlington-Northern Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching, the Conservatory Trustees' Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Standard Oil Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the Award of Merit from Mu Phi Epsilon. She was on the board of directors of the annual World Piano Pedagogy Conference, and a longtime member of Mu Phi Epsilon, the Music Teachers National Association, the Missouri Music Teachers Association, and the Kansas City Musical Club.

Her legacy continues in the form of The Joanne Baker Prize, to be given in perpetuity at the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, recognizing that she is "known throughout the United States and the world as one of the most charismatic and exceptional musicians and teachers by her students and colleagues."

In 2003, The Joanne Baker Piano Scholarship was endowed by the Women's Committee for the Conservatory of Music, UMKC. Joanne's presence is audible to all in the musicians she trained and in the music they are making throughout the world.

She is lovingly survived by a son, Russell W. Baker, Jr., and his wife, Susan; a daughter, Wyatt Townley, and her husband, Roderick; and five grandchildren, Dr. Joshua Baker, Elizabeth Baker, Katherine Baker, Edward Baker, and Grace Townley, in whose lives she lives on.

Published in the Kansas City Star from 12/30/2004 - 1/2/2005.