EAR TAXI FESTIVAL 2025 - Nervous Liturgies: The Piano Music of Robert Savage

Pianist Daniel Baer brings the music of Robert Savage (1951-1993) to Chicago. Robert Savage, a queer composer who died from complications due to AIDS in 1993, is a largely unknown artist whose music is unpublished and rarely performed. This concert presents Savage’s music from his earliest works to those that he wrote after his AIDS diagnosis in 1988. Savage’s late compositions grapple with his AIDS diagnosis and mortality, reflect his practice of Zen Buddhism, and demonstrate the unique synthesis of popular and academic musical trends that led John Ashbery to describe him as “a serious and very talented musicologist and composer.” Listen to the evolution of a unique American artist composing music of unparalleled and urgent intensity.

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 of bigger ideas.” Dr. Baer won first prize, the Marshall Prize, at the 2015 Grieg Festival Young Artist Competition held in Sarasota, Florida.  He has since made his international debut, playing in the International Bergen Arts Festival and for the Grieg Society of Oslo.  He has been a prizewinner in many other national and international piano competitions including the 2017 Iowa piano competition, the 2015 National Federation of Music Clubs Biennial Competition held in Fargo, North Dakota, and the MTNA young artist piano competition. Dr. Baer was invited to be the guest artist at the 2012 Leschetizky Annual Birthday Recital, which was his New York solo debut. The blog Music, Life and other challenges wrote “Daniel Baer’s playing took the ear on a leash. Every note had color, depth, emotion, and meaning.” In 2011, he participated in Juilliard’s ChamberFest program performing the Brahms G minor piano quartet in Paul Hall.  He has also played solo and chamber music recitals in Avery Fischer Hall, Kilbourn Hall, Hatch Recital Hall, and Steinway Hall.

Baer has taught at the Eastman School of Music, the Eastman Community Music School, and Syracuse University. His students have won piano competitions, participated in local and statewide music programs, and earned admittance to college music programs. Dr. Baer lectured and worked as an accompanist at Syracuse University in 2017. In 2016, he was awarded the Teaching Assistant Prize in recognition of his work as a teacher for the Eastman School of Music. For his achievements in the study and performance of piano, the Eastman School of Music awarded Dr. Baer the 2017 Cobos Piano Prize.

Baer has studied with Seymour Bernstein since 2005 and has taken lessons from Richard Goode, Joeseph Kalichstein, Nina Tichman, and Jerome Rose. Dr. Baer received his Master’s Degree in Piano Performance at Juilliard where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal and earned his Doctorate at the Eastman School of Music where he studied with Douglas Humpherys.