Baikida Carroll (composer, trumpet) is a highly pivotal figure in the music world. He has written scores that have distinguished theater, dance, TV, film, and concerts for over four decades. His music and trumpet have been heard at major forums throughout the world including The Booth Theatre (NYC), Merkin Hall (NYC), Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Walker Art Center, New York and Washington D.C. Shakespeare Festival, McCarter Theatre, the Chicago Museum of Art, Le Grande Palais (Paris), the Belgium Opera, The Corcoran Gallery, the Berlin Opera, the Mark Taper Forum, the Market Theater in South Africa, as well as a multitude of international jazz festivals including: the JVC, Heritage, Montreux, Kool, Vision, and Newport.

Carroll's theater compositions include: Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekov, The Mighty Gents by Richard Wesley (featuring Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson), Poem for a Revolutionary Night by Larry Neal, Coontown Bicentennial Memorial Services with and by Julius Hemphill, For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange, featuring the voice of Patti LaBelle, Miss Julie by August Strindberg, Safe As Houses by Richard Greenberg, Legacies by Kermit Frazier, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams, King Lear by William Shakespeare, A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen, and The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico Garcia Lorca. In addition, Baikida co-authored and scored the highly acclaimed R&B musical Betsey Brown with Ntozake Shange and Emily Mann. In 1995, Baikida composed the score to Emily Mann's celebrated; Tony-nominated Broadway hit show, Having Our Say and In August of 2001 Carroll scored "The Oedipus Plays", a mythical production set in Africa of Sophocle's epic Oedipus trilogy; Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone. The show was directed by Michael Kahn and starred Avery Brooks, Earle Hyman and Cynthia Martells.
 
As a musician, Baikida has performed and recorded with artists such as Dewey Redman, Sam Rivers, Oliver Nelson, Albert King, David Murray, Jay McShann, Amiri Baraka, Patti Labelle, Little Milton, Michael Gregory, David Sancious, Carla Bley, Charlie Haden, Roscoe Mitchell, Dr. John, Anthony Davis, Anthony Braxton, June Jordan, Howard Johnson, and Reggie Workman. He was a featured soloist on Julius Hemphill's Dogon A.D. and Coon Bid'ness, Oliver Lake's premier album NTU, John Carter's classic Castles of Ghana, Muhal Richard Abrams' 1983 Down Beat Record of the Year Blues Forever, Jack DeJohnette's acclaimed Inflation Blues and Sam River's 2000 Grammy nominated Inspiration. His own recordings include Orange Fish Tears, The Spoken Word, Shadows and Reflections, Door of the Cage and Marionettes on a High Wire.