Karen Faust Baer

Enjoying a diverse career in solo performance, conducting, accompanying and pedagogy, pianist Karen Faust Baer maintains a vital musical presence. Presently, she is the new conductor of The Adelphi Choral Ensemble in addition to teaching in the Music Education Department of the school.

Acknowledged in “Who’s Who of American Women” for her musical accomplishments, Baer has both her Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from The Juilliard School. In 1968, Baer made her piano Carnegie Hall debut with the American Symphony Orchestra and her international debut at the Todi Music Festival in Italy.

Baer has been heard in recital at Lincoln Center, Town Hall, BAM, Israeli Cultural Foundation, the Tanglewood Music Institute, Princeton, college campuses and WQXR and WNYC radio stations. In recent years, Baer has appeared as piano soloist with the South Shore Symphony performing works by Beethoven, Gershwin and Chopin.

A sought-after accompanist, she has performed both with solo artists and with conductors Joe Miller, Andre Thomas, James Jordan, Brady Allred, Sharon Paul, and Rollo Dillworth for several college and state choirs. She has been the accompanist for the NY State All-State choirs for the last twenty five years. Her past summers have been spent collaborating with Dr. Jennifer Miceli of C.W.Post in “Bella Voci”, a women’s intergenerational choir, concerts benefiting breast cancer.

The Nelson-Baer duo, a two piano and duet team, she founded with pianist, Eleanor Mandell Nelson have graced the stages of many NYC venues including The Juilliard School, Kingsborough College, Hofstra University, the Gold and Hecksher Museum Auditoriums and several libraries in the metropolitan area. Their multi- media presentations have been seen and heard across the U.S.

Baer has served as adjudicator for the Friday Music Club Competition, the Piano Teachers’ Guild, and NYSSMA. As an educator, Baer has served on the faculties of SUNY Purchase and as both International Baccalaureate instructor and vocal music director at South Side High School, Rockville Centre for over thirty years.