Marion Baker is principal cellist with the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra and free-lances in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.  He is a co-founder of the RusticWay Chamber Music Ensemble and plays with the Listen Local Ensemble and the National Gallery/Sunrise Quartet.  

He received his musical training at Kent State University with Moshe Amitay and at the Curtis Institute of Music with Orlando Cole and Misha Schneider.   Though not an alumnus of NEMC he attended music festivals including Brevard where he was a concerto winner, Eastern Music Festival, and Music Mountain studying with Fritz Magg.  He started teaching at NEMC in 2018.

Marion has served as principal cellist for many orchestras including the Washington Concert Opera, National Gallery Orchestra, Knoxville Symphony and the National Philharmonic and performed under many conductors including Leonard Slatkin, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Thor Johnson, and Aaron Copland.  Marion performed as principal continuo for the Washington Bach Consort for 20 years, touring with them to the International Bach Festival in Leipzig, East Germany. Marion has performed the Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations, Haydn D major Concerto, Popper Hungarian Rhapsody, Vivaldi Two Cello Concerto, Brahms Double Concerto, Beethoven Triple Concerto, and Haydn Symphony Concertante with orchestras, and premiered the Ventzislav Dikov Movement for Cello (2013) at the National Gallery in Washington, DC.  Marion developed his love of teaching from a musical family that taught strings in the public schools and at Suzuki Institutes across the country. He currently teaches a combination of traditional and Suzuki methods from his home studio.