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  • Chester Mystery Plays: …Matt Baker’s terrific score ranges from pub singalongs to majestic choruses. The Guardian, 4 star review
  • Matt Baker’s music unites heaven and earth. The Observer
  • James and The Giant Peach - Nuffield Theatre Southampton: I thoroughly enjoyed it, and thought that you had been very clever with the music. You cleverly took some of my dialogue and turned it into snatches of song, with very tuneful melodies. This was exactly the kind of treatment I wanted my adaptation to have.David Woods - playwright
  • Matt Baker’s excellent score. Liverpool Daily Post
  • A Christmas Carol, Dukes Lancaster: ..and the music score is a sheer delight. It’s beautifully sung and played too by an excellent cast. The Dukes must produce a CD of the shows soundtrack what a splendid stocking-filler it would make! Lancaster UK Online
  • My staff tell me that you were truly inspirational in a way that they will never forget. Dr Lesley Cooke - singing workshop at University of Chester, 2016
  • The evening entertainment was phenomenal! - (I had so much fun and I could see the sheer enjoyment on the faces of my colleagues). Hilary Berry - Chair of Cheshire West Association of Primary Heads
  • A Christmas Carol, Dukes Lancaster: The musical direction, by Matt Baker, was one of the highlights of the show, and the lovely arrangements of festive tunes were performed beautifully by the cast, providing a fantastic accompaniment to the dramatic action.The Westmorland Gazette
  • What I learned about your sessions was your sense of fun and the way you sorted a room full of over a hundred people into harmony parts and had them singing in half an hour. You are a fantastic teacher and you remain so positive too. One of the really amazing things that you can do is that you can SING ALL THE PARTS!! It is amazing. To have a male teacher who can sing my part is amazing. You were such a good influence on everybody. Your influence on the children was electrifying. You have so many talents. Thank you for all your hard work and the beautiful music you composed. Participant
  • Theatre in the Quarter, the group which began modestly in the Garden Quarter area of Chester and which now attracts professional actors with impressive track records and huge reputations to its productions…..It will take something incredible for Theatre in the Quarter to top all this in 2013 but if there is one person who can manage that feat, it’s Matt Baker.Chester Chronicle, January 2013
  • Yet Hope I: "Intensely beautiful"Prince Charles, 2014
  • Words cannot say how thankful we are for the beautiful song you composed for our school. Today's assembly was off the scale in terms of energy and inspiration and we are so lucky to have had the opportunity to work with you. You really are one of the most talented and inspirational people I have ever worked with and I really hope we can work together again. The praise is rolling in from staff, parents, UNICEF assessors and children. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts! Roz Artist - teacher, Cherry Grove School, Chester, April 2017
  • Everyone commented on what great sessions you led and were asking when you would be back! Amy Robinson - Peer Support Group Facilitator, Alzheimer’s Society
  • Amazing and inspirational sessions. Thanks for being part of our Roadshow for teachers and delivering fabulous content. Everyone had such a lot of fun. Thank you! Alita Mills - Head of Education, Stagecoach Theatre Arts UK
  • You blew us away and really set the bar high for our first rehearsal. Thank you so much as we all thoroughly enjoyed you leading us. What a great and uplifting song! Wish you were based in London. Mathurot - Making Music UK
  • Thank you' for the work you did with our choir. You pitched it perfectly. I have had so much positive feedback from choir members about how helpful it was. It has given us the confidence we need to move forward.Liverpool LGBT Chorus
  • I just want to say a HUGE THANK YOU for last week - you really were amazing with what you did and so natural with it, it was incredible to watch. The feedback from the client and the attendees has been brilliant, I am so grateful to you for absolutely smashing it!!Kate Hellon - House of Live

Audio & Video

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Audio & Video

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Image Gallery

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Project Archive

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Audio Files

Astonished - from Star of Wonder
Lyrics, Helen Newall; Soloist, Emily Barlow

O Lamb of God - from Chester Mystery Plays
Soloist, Diana Palmer

Productions large and small

Matt has composed large scale works for amphitheatres, railway stations, palaces and cathedrals. He has also created work performed by a small ensemble of musicians, choirs or actors.

His creative projects with young people vary from creating plays in a week in Chester, sharing new songs with children in Istanbul to composing songs with theatre students in Hong Kong.
For The Fallen (Binyon) composed by Matt Baker (Liverpool Anglican Cathedral)
Over by Christmas at Manchester Piccadilly Station
Chester Mystery Plays 2008
Best Days of Our Lives 2015
(An integrated theatre and film project celebrating growing up in Blacon)

Community projects

From engaging thousands of people in city centres in Germany or UK, to a crowd of people in a community pub, Matt has a reputation for getting everybody singing (and possibly dancing).

Matt has generated musical projects which tell the story of people's lives, communities' histories or people's dreams of the future. 
Cathedrals Group University Choir Festival 2024
Chester Hosannah - part one of the University Cathedrals Group Choir Festival 2024
​‘Spice Up Your Life’ sung by Chester UK LGBT choir to mark 25th anniversary of Spice Girls, July 2021
Matt's Medley for Queen's 90th Birthday

Theatre in the Quarter

Matt Baker founded Theatre in the Quarter (TIQ) in 2015. TIQ transforms lives by creating high quality original theatre with and for diverse communities. Its work is produced on a variety of scales, in a range of locations and venues and often involving large numbers of participants and audiences. It always involves professional artists as co-creators or co-performers, and engages people deeply in activity, creating relevant, exciting work which impacts on their lives and makes a lasting contribution to all it involves. Its work builds new and future audiences.

TIQ achieves high artistic standards and takes artistic risks, extends its reach and challenges its creative teams. Its work has a strong sense of place; reflecting and commenting on the lives of those it engages. 

TIQ’s projects provide a platform for better understanding between communities, generations and cultures, and foster a sense of belonging and civic pride. Its work excites and inspires people of varying backgrounds and ages about the world they live in, a future world they want to shape, or a history they wish to reflect upon.  

TIQ nurtures talent, raises aspiration, skills and self-confidence, reduces isolation and finds new ways to introduce communities to arts activity. Responsive and commission-ready, it thrives on collaboration with cultural organisations, education establishments, stakeholders and artists.  

TIQ reaches out to adult participants and children across Cheshire and beyond, young people who attend its youth theatre groups and professional artists drawn from the UK and internationally. Its professional and community work takes place at local, regional and national level. 


Theatre in the Quarter in 1 minute!
How Theatre in the Quarter transformed George's life
Over by Christmas  - trailer
Chester marks the London Olympics

A Handbag of Harmonies

Matt is musical director of women's choir A Handbag of Harmonies; a sixty strong choir of women who sing Matt's (and others) own arrangements of popular classics in 4 or 5 part harmony with handbag-swinging choreography.

A Handbag of Harmonies create a party wherever they go. They have performed in a variety of locations and events, from theatres to street corners, cathedrals to stately gardens, BBC1 to Channel 4, northern Italy to southern Germany.

The choir have won best overall entry in Manchester Pride Parade, been the top women's choir in BBC1's Last Choir Standing and, with Matt as their creative leader, generated a wealth of performance projects of all scales, engaging many other participants.

Matt leads a successful programme of outreach programmes called 'Be A Handbag For A Day'.
Eurovision Medley, Liverpool Waterfront May 2023
Downtown (BBC1)
Adding a little sparkle to Christmas - Lyme Park, 2022