Ada Baker

[6] Later, in 1886, she held a concert, again at the Freemason's Hall, and raised £50 for Wagga hospital[1] and £24/15/6 to the Lord Mayor of Sydney for survivors of the shipwreck of the Ly-ee-moon off the Green Cape Lighthouse.

[4] During the same year, she participated in a number of Promenade concerts, held at the Exhibition Building which was situated in Prince Alfred Park, Surry Hills.

[3]: 65  She received favourable reviews, with The Evening News writer praising her debut performance: Miss Baker possesses a voice of rare quality, good range, and sings with the ease and grace of a natural artiste and a cultivated vocalist.

Her style is marked by fascinating refinement, her intonation is perfect; her enunciation distinct, and as a ballad singer she bids fair to take place in the front rank of Australian vocalists.

She possesses a voice of rich calibre; the lower notes are deliciously liquid, the upper ones of full power, so that she fills the building with ease.

[3]: 65 [note 1] In October 1890 she was in Henri Kowalski's "Grand Concert" at Centennial Town Hall as the lead soloist, singing Gioachino Rossini's "La Carita".

[15][16] Upon her return from overseas, Baker performed in a hospital benefit at the School of Arts in North Sydney,[17] and in August 1894 joined Harry Rickards' vaudeville company at the Tivoli Theatre.

The magistrate was unconvinced by Baker's claims of illness and determined that the medical certificate was provided to avoid attending the fields.

[25] When Baker left Western Australia in 1907 to go back to Sydney she had built a solid reputation, with the Bunbury Herald describing her as "perhaps the best mezzo soprano vocalist in the state.

[32][33][34] By March of that year she had re-commenced teaching singing to young students, in Marrickville,[35][36] with the first concert on 19 June 1908 at St James Hall, in Phillip Street, Sydney.

[38] Baker arranged music for and led the St Cecilia Ladies' Choir in Pymble,[39] where she raised AU£1000 for the local branch of the British Red Cross Society during World War I.

[1][40] The Sydney Morning Herald said that "Madame Ada Baker's Pymble Cecilia Ladles' Choir can fairly claim to be the original 'All-Girl' Patriotic Entertainers.

"[41] The choir performed a variety of concerts, including the play The Princess of Poppyland, by C. King Proctor,[note 3][42] and the cantata The Hours, by Shapcott Wensley.

[54] Baker also arranged and performed in numerous concerts, recitals and eisteddfods,[55][56] including a performance of Stephen Vost Janssen's concert The Rajah's Ruby (1921)[57] and operetta The Lucky Dream (1930),[58] Arthur A. Penn's light comic opera In Old Havana (1928)[59] and The China Shop (1937),[60] Suppé's opera Boccaccio (1933),[61] Paul Lacôme's opéra comique Ma Mie Rosette (1935),[1] and Robert Planquette's opéra comique Les Cloches de Corneville (1939).

[69] She gave two lectures for the alliance: the first in July 1934 was "The Training of Children's Voices"[70] and the second, in August 1938, was on English music of the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.

In 1945, after one of her grandchildren died while serving in the Royal Air Force,[73] she set-up the "Grandmothers' Victory Bond League" to fund Australians in World War II.

[75] Upon her retirement, over 60 past and present students arranged a testimonial concert at Sydney Town Hall on 14 July 1949, but Baker was too ill to attend.

Bondi Aquarium c. 1891
Baker as a member of Harry Rickards ' Company, Perth , July 1898. When the company returned to Sydney, Baker remained in Perth. [ 10 ]
Advertisement announcing Ada Baker's intentions to stay in Perth to teach singing. [ 23 ]