daniel baer, piano

The New York Times has hailed Daniel Baer as a pianist who plays with “fluidity, warmth, and sparkle” who “achieved the often elusive … goal of putting virtuosity at the service ofbigger ideas.”

Daniel Baer was the artist-pianist for the 2020-2021 LYNX Project, premiering new compositions for voice and piano and recording songs for an anthologycelebrating four years of its autism advocacy series. He currently serves as Music Director for Queer Poem-a-Day, a poetry podcast for the month of June. Daniel Baer is an active performer of solo and chamber music throughout the United States.

Dr. Baer earned his Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School and his Doctorate from the Eastman School of Music. He is currently on faculty at Illinois State University and the Music Institute of Chicago where he also directs the Chamber Music Program.

kent cook, piano

Dr. R. Kent Cook is Professor of Piano and Head of the Keyboard Department at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois.  He keeps an active schedule as soloist and chamber musician, having performed in venues throughout the United States and abroad.  Regionally, he has appeared in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, while in Europe, he has performed in Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, England, France, Germany and Italy.

R. Kent Cook hails from Odessa, Texas where he began to play the piano at age six.  He attended Baylor University to pursue dentistry, but quickly began serious study of the piano.  After finishing a Piano Performance Degree with honors under the guidance of Roger Keyes, he continued his studies at Indiana University receiving both his Masters and Doctorate Degrees in Piano Performance.  He has worked with distinguished pianists Leonard Hokanson, Eteri Andjaparidze, Michel Block, James Tocco, and Karen Shaw, and in 1992-93, he studied with Herbert Seidel as a Fulbright Scholar at the Hochschule für Musik in Frankfurt, Germany.

Before joining the piano faculty at Illinois Wesleyan University in 1999, Dr. Cook served on music faculties at DePauw University, the Indiana University Piano Academy, and the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp.  He is currently active as an adjudicator and master teacher throughout the Midwest, and during the summer he teaches at the Illinois Chamber Music Festival.  In 2009, he joined the faculty of the International Chamber Music Festival based in Kyustendil, Bulgaria. 

Cook released his first recording in 2002 on the Novitas label.  Entitled Nachtstück, it is a recording of twelve Nocturnes by seven different composers including Chopin, Liszt, and Schumann.  Soon to be released are two recordings, one featuring Debussy’s Préludes for Piano and trio recording with longtime collaborators oboist Roger Roe and violist Michael Isaac Strauss.