On August 28, 2016, Jenny Oaks Baker, a Grammy Award-nominated, Billboard Magazine No. 1 violin recording artist and performer, will be a special guest on Music & the Spoken Word.

Jenny began playing the violin at age four and made her solo orchestral debut in 1983 when she was only eight years old. She received a bachelor’s degree in violin performance from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and a master of music degree from the renowned Julliard School in New York City. She has performed as a soloist at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Strathmore Hall, the Library of Congress, and as guest soloist with the National Symphony, Jerusalem Symphony, Pittsburg Symphony, San Diego Symphony, and Utah Symphony. She has also been featured on television and radio broadcasts nationwide, and film soundtracks.

After performing as first violinist with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D. C. for seven years, Jenny resigned in 2007 to devote more time to her young family of four children, then all under five years of age. She loved performing and hoped to be able to find other ways to use her musical talent that would be more beneficial to her family. “I loved performing the greatest music in the world, with the greatest soloists and conductors and in the greatest concert halls, … but I was missing so many of the greatest good-night kisses by performing three evening concerts a week.” Between carpooling to soccer practices, she now oversees her children’s own music practices and continues to build her solo career with 60 to 75 performances per year.

Jenny has recorded over fifteen albums, having sold more than half a million copies since 1998. Her album Wish Upon a Star: A Tribute to the Music of Walt Disney earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Instrumental Album. Jenny’s albums consistently chart on Billboard magazine with her Then Sings My Soul CD hitting the #1 spot on the Top Classical Albums chart two weeks in a row.