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E-mail: Geoff Baker

Geoff Baker joined the department as a Lecturer in 2005, having previously served here as a Leverhulme Research Fellow. He studied modern languages at Oxford University and early music performance at the Utrecht Conservatorium and the Royal Academy of Music. He went on to complete a PhD at Royal Holloway under the supervision of Dr Tess Knighton.
His main area of research is music in Latin America, and the majority of his publications have focused on music and society in colonial Peru. He has contributed articles to Il Saggiatore Musicale (2002), Latin American Music Review (2003), Revista Andina (2003), and Early Music (2004 and 2008). His book Imposing Harmony: Music and Society in Colonial Cuzco was published by Duke University Press in 2008, and a Spanish translation is in preparation for publication in Lima. He is co-editing a volume of essays on music and urban history in colonial Latin America with Tess Knighton, to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2009.
Geoff’s current research centres on Latin American popular music, and he has a particular interest in contemporary urban music in Cuba. He has published three essays on rap and reggaetón in Havana and is preparing a book manuscript on the same topic for the Duke University Press series Refiguring American Music. His future work will focus on music education in Cuba and Venezuela, and he is co-investigator on the three-year project “Growing into music”, funded through the AHRC’s Beyond Text scheme.

He makes regular visits to Latin America and the Caribbean, and last year gave seminars and papers in Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, and the US. His research embraces urban musicology, colonialism/postcolonialism, and the culture of late socialism. As a performer, Geoff has extensive experience of Renaissance and Baroque music and also pursues a side interest in jazz.