David Baker is Associate Professor at the UCL Institute of Education, London where he is Programme Leader for the Music Education MA. In tandem with his research, MA programme leadership and teaching, David has a wide-ranging role including supervising and examining doctorates at UCL, and serving on the panel of ethics reviewers at the Institute. In recent years, he has also been External Examiner for PhDs at the University of Auckland, the University of Leeds, the University of Liverpool, and Guildhall School of Music and Drama. David also runs the Institute's Music Special Interest Group, a series of research seminars for staff members and students relating to music education and related fields presented by internationally-recognized scholars from the UK and overseas. David is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and, in 2018, became a fellowship assessor for UCL Arena. His other academic activities include peer-reviewing for a number of leading music education journals, writing book reviews, and he has published various research articles and book chapters on music education. From 2018 to 2022, he was also on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Community Music. David's co-authored book with Lucy Green on their Arts and Humanities Research Council "Visually-impaired musicians’ lives" work was published by Routledge in 2017. He has recently finished a second book (sole authored) on music education, which will be released shortly, and is under contract to write a third for Cambridge University Press. David has also contributed chapters on disability and music to the Oxford handbook of community music (edited by Lee Higgins and Brydie-Leigh Barteet, 2018), the Routledge international handbook of music psychology in education and the community (edited by Andrea Creech, Donald Hodges and Susan Hallam, 2021) and the Oxford handbook of care in music education (edited by Karin Hendricks, 2023).
From 2018–22, David served as Academic Head of Learning and Teaching for the Department of Culture, Communication and Media working with his Head of Department on departmental quality assurance procedures and onward initiatives, supporting programme teams with validation activities, working on student casework, chairing clustered MA examination boards, and participating in both Programme and Module Approval Group and Student Recruitment and Admissions Group meetings. He has also been Module Leader for the MA in Instrumental Teaching at Reading University, UK in the past, and also for the postgraduate certificate and diploma “The teaching musician” at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London. He has supervised MA research on a variety of music education topics since 2002. David participated in the development of a music degree course at Plymouth University, including later serving as External Examiner, and supported the validation of one of Trinity Laban's MA programmes. He also assisted the periodic review of the Royal Academy of Music's LRAM diploma as External Consultant.
Some of David's early musical experiences were in brass bands on the South Coast of England. He comes from a background as a trumpet player and music teacher, having taught in UK primary and secondary schools for over 10 years. He learned the trumpet with David Mason who can be heard on “Penny lane” by the Beatles. David is a member of the Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain; and is also committee member for the Baluji Music Foundation, a UK registered charity that supports blind and partially-sighted musicians. He received his PhD in Music Education in 2005, which gained a Bernarr Rainbow Award in 2003.
special interests
blind and partially-sighted musicians' lives and learning, visual impairment, music and education, accessible music technologies, musicians' life stages, playing music by ear, biographical research, narratives and life histories, musical ability, pedagogical training in the music conservatoire
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