Background
DMA, Eastman School of Music
Daniel Baer is a pianist, chamber musician, and teacher based in Chicago. Dr. Baer has been hailed by the New York Times as a pianist who plays with “fluidity, warmth, and sparkle,” and who “achieved the often elusive goal of putting virtuosity at the service of bigger ideas.” A sought-after educator, he is currently on faculty at the Music Institute of Chicago and teaches at Northwestern University and Northeastern Illinois University.
Dr. Baer enjoys a rich performing career throughout Illinois and around the country, highlighting new music and voices, while also being praised for his interpretations of traditional repertoire. Originally from New York City, Daniel Baer has performed at prestigious venues across the United States and Europe. A prize winner in many national and international piano competitions, he won the First Prize (Marshall Prize) at the 2015 Grieg Young Artists Competition, which led to performances at the Grieg Society of Oslo and the International Bergen Arts Festival. In recent years, he has been a multiple repeat performer at area festivals including the Ear Taxi Festival, the Illinois Chamber Music Festival, and the RED NOTE New Music Festival, where he gave the world premiere of a new work by Colin Matthews. His frequent collaborations with poets have led to a unique performance at the Flow Chart Foundation (Hudson, NY), broadcast on Wave Farm Radio (WGXC), where he highlighted his original research on composer Robert Savage, and his role as Music Director for the podcast Queer Poem-a-Day at the Deerfield Public Library. He also served as Artist-Pianist for the LYNX Project, performing world premieres of art song by contemporary composers setting text by non-verbal writers with autism. He recorded for their anthology album beautiful small things (ArtistShare, 2022) and performed selections from this series at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago. Dr. Baer recently appeared on the American Viola Society’s album AVP Presents 2025: Hypnagogia, performing a work by Roque Cordero. Dr. Baer’s own solo and collaborative concerts include appearances at PianoForte Chicago, Barrington’s White House for the Elgin Symphony, Chicago Viola Fest, and Bradley University.
Dr. Baer has previously taught at Illinois State University, Syracuse University, and the Eastman School of Music, where he was awarded the Graduate Teaching Assistant Prize. He earned both his Bachelor of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Eastman School of Music, where he won the 2017 Cobos Piano Prize in recognition of exceptional achievement in piano study and performance. He earned his Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School. His teachers include Douglas Humpherys, Jerome Lowenthal, and Seymour Bernstein.