Rick Baptist joined the American Federation of Musicians union at age 12 aspiring to become a session musician. Rick moved to Reno in 1969 and joined Local 368 Reno and during his time in Reno played on the Harrahs Reno house band. In 1971 Rick moved to Las Vegas where he joined Local 369 Las Vegas and stayed there until November of 1979. Rick was the first trumpet on the relief band in town (each hotel had a house band that would work 6 days and the Relief Band would do the seventh day, so they worked 6 different hotels each week and this gave Rick the opportunity to meet a lot of people and to get his name out there). Rick states, “I think I worked every act that came through Las Vegas. In 1980 Rick moved to Los Angeles and has performed on more than 1,300 motion picture soundtrack scores, including Pixar’s “The Incredibles” and the studio’s upcoming “Inside Out.” Baptist served as first trumpet on the Academy Awards show for 30 years, the Emmys for nearly three decades, and has performed with major recording artists such as Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Josh Groban, and Michael Bublé. Since December 2014 Baptist has served as vice president of the American Federation of Musicians Local 47.