Luke Christopher Baron, age 19, is a composer and pianist currently attending the Juilliard School for composition. There he studies with Professor Valerie Coleman. Recently, Luke was commissioned by Carol Wincenc, becoming the inaugural composer of the MXE 35th Anniversary commissioning initiative, to create a new work for Sextet. This new work “Silver Flares” was performed at the Juilliard School alongside works by Claude Debussy, Toru Takemitsu, and Heitor Villa-Lobos. Luke will have two new works premiered this year at the National Flute Association Convention in Atlanta. In 2025, he founded The Sisu Project, an initiative bringing Finnish cultural music to life. To further this initiative, he shot a documentary in partnership with NYCL Films, which is premiering in the fall of 2025. The documentary contains meaningful messages about the importance of sharing culture and telling stories, the need for a spiritual connection and the liberation one feels in discovering their heritage. 

In 2023, Luke was awarded the New York Youth Symphony’s “Dean’s Award”. Whilst at NYYS, he had numerous works read and performed in his time at NYYS. Some of which include readings from the DeCoda and the Grammy-award-winning New York Youth Symphony orchestras and chamber works performed by the Traumerei Clarinet quintet, Esprit Piano Quartet, and organist Jae Lee. In 2024, Luke was awarded “From The Top Finalist” honors. He also won the Ballora-Wang Young Composer Prize from Penn State and placed as a finalist for the Ruth Crawford Seager prize. Luke attended the Young Artist Program for Composition at BU Tanglewood Institute in summer 2023. In the same summer he was announced as a Springboard Grant Winner by the Bruce Montgomery Foundation for the Arts. Luke has also had success as a pianist. In 2022 he won the Sound Symphony Concerto Competition where he made his solo debut playing Mozart Concerto No. 13, for which wrote and performed original cadenzas.

Luke is not only a composer but an avid performer. In addition to his classical piano studies, Luke has gained much experience as a rock keyboard player. This summer, he will be touring Europe with Banned from Utopia, a rock group containing members of Frank Zappa's original band, The Mothers of Invention. He will be headlining at Zappanale with them in Bad Doberan, Germany, before leaving to tour with Gibby Haynes of the Butt-hole surfers. With Gibby, he will perform in Helsinki, Tallinn, Prague, Berlin, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, London, Manchester and Dublin for thousands of people each night.