Russell Baker is a teacher, musician and song writer who loves to create music with people. He works as a music teacher in two primary schools where singing, performing and exploring musical concepts through the use of instruments fill his days with sound.
“I didn’t imagine that I would be a music teacher. I was a casual teacher who came with a guitar and sang with the students, and was asked to develop and teach a music program.”
This unexpected opportunity led Russell to studying music at Western Sydney University and a creative career that he loves. He established the “School Ukulele Orchestra” site to share resources and lessons with other teachers, and to promote and enable ukulele teaching.
As a composer, Russell wrote and recorded the following ukulele soundtrack music, “Anástacio’s Song”, for a short documentary in 2020.
“Mobile Stories – Anástacio’s Story” documentary link: http://www.mobilestories.net/anas_movie.html
Russell’s latest songwriting project is the creation of children’s songs for every phoneme in Australian English, incorporating the various spelling variations that are found for each sound. Russ E Baker Phoneme Songs This follows from a previous project: a song for each letter in the alphabet. Russ E Baker Letter-of-the-Week Songs
As a church musician, Russell has composed, arranged, performed and led congregational singing at his local church, along with coordinating singers and musicians for regular and special events.
As a songwriter, arranger and performer, Russell played and recorded in the almost completely unknown band “The Doomsday Preachers”. Hear “The Doomsday Preachers” on ReverbNation
When he’s not making music, Russell enjoys growing Australian native food plants, delving into history, bushwalking, cycling and canoeing.
“I was born on Dharug country. This is where I live and work, and this is the place I call home. I acknowledge the Dharug people as the traditional custodians of this land, and wish to express my respect to Darug elders, past and present. I also want to say thank you to the many members of the Aboriginal community in Western Sydney who have extended friendship and welcome to me, a descendant of convicts and colonists. Ngaradyingun Dharug Nurrawa. Together we learn on Dharug Country.”
Academia: https://westernsydney.academia.edu/RBaker
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/russell-baker-58769b92/
Created by Russell Baker, 2019, updated 2023. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The School Ukulele Orchestra 