He was born in
Staines,
Middlesex, to an English father, Bevan Braithwaite Baker
FRSE (1890-1963), a professor of mathematics at
Royal Holloway, University of London, and a Scottish mother, Margaret Stewart Barbour, of
Edinburgh. John was the youngest of five children. He went to preparatory school at the
Downs School in
Herefordshire, and in 1939 he went up to
Blundell's School in
Devon on an art scholarship. He fulfilled his war service from 1944 to 1946 as a
Bevin Boy at a coal mine at
Newbiggin in
Northumberland. In 1946 he entered the
Royal College of Music to study organ and composition. His tutors included
Ralph Vaughan Williams and
Gordon Jacob. In 1949 he became an assistant to the
organist of Westminster Abbey. He stayed in this position for two years, and then devoted himself to giving lectures for the
WEA and freelance organ playing in
London. In 1958 he moved north to
Aberdeen to take the position of city
carillonneur at the
Kirk of St Nicholas in the city centre. In Aberdeen he met June Findlay, whom he married in 1960. They would have five children: Sarah,
Peter, Kate, Janet, and Rachel. Baker took up full-time teaching posts at
Robert Gordon's College in Aberdeen, at
Whitehill Secondary School in
Glasgow, and then at the Fortrose Academy in
Fortrose on the
Black Isle in the
Scottish Highlands. It was here where he and his family made their home. His last years in Fortrose were his most productive, and he wrote and directed numerous works for both amateur and professional musicians.
Peter Maxwell Davies has described these compositions as 'beautifully crafted, transparently honest music, of great warmth and melodic fecundity.' Baker died on 24 June 1994. ==Works==