Olivia Palmer-Baker, Bassoon

Olivia Palmer-Baker was born in Shetland, where her first encounters with music included stealing her sister's electric fiddle and serenading the island with her drum set. Fast forward to age nine, where she discovered the bassoon in the town of Newtownards, and, since then, Olivia and her bassoon have traversed (some) of the globe, making music with groups such as Ensemble Musikfabrik, Ensemblekollektiv Berlin, Ensemble Modern, the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra and Ensemble New Babylon; performing at festivals like Festival Mixtur, Musikfest Berlin, the Aldeburgh Festival, at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, the Lucerne Festival, and impuls Graz; and initiating collaborations not only as a soloist on bassoon and kontraforte, but also as a member of the Berlin-based Kollektiv Unruhe. Olivia enjoys performing and improvising with and without her bassoon, performing also on historical instruments as well as curating concerts, working in a collaborative way between disciplines, co-creating concepts and challenging archaic norms still held in contemporary classical music performance.
Olivia Palmer-Baker received her bachelor’s degree at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and her master’s at the University of the Arts, Berlin. In her free time, Olivia Palmer-Baker enjoys film, travel, cooking, and a nice warm summer evening relaxing with friends.