Rockville Centre educator to perform with South Shore Symphony in Molloy College theater debut

One of South Side High School’s own, Vocal Music Director Karen Faust Baer, will be a featured soloist on Nov. 20, when she performs with the South Shore Symphony Orchestra in its debut concert at Molloy College’s new Madison Theatre.

The longtime music teacher at South Side High School will perform Frederic Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, a 40-minute piece, with the symphony. Other selections in the program, which starts at 8 p.m., include Beethoven’s “Overture to Consecration of the House,” and Dvorak’s “Symphony # 9 from the New World.”

“I’m very much looking forward to the opportunity to be part of the collaboration between director Scott Jackson Wiley, the symphony and the guest soloist,” said Baer, who in addition to teaching, performs professionally both as a soloist and with a partner, Eleanor Nelson, in the Nelson–Baer Duo.

Baer said she’s been practicing at home every night and will have two rehearsals with the symphony before the performance. She’s memorized the piece and will play it “concert-style” — without sheet music.

Her connection to the South Shore Symphony came through one of her high school cello students, Alex Lipton. Lipton’s father, Wayne, a former deputy mayor of Rockville Centre, is vice president of the Rockville Centre Guild for the Arts and president of the village-based South Shore Symphony, where he has played as its principal cellist for more than 17 years. Baer got to know Wayne, who learned that she was also a performing pianist when she accompanied his son at his all-state audition. That connection led her to play Beethoven’s “Emperor Concerto” at South Side Middle School with the South Shore Symphony three years ago.

Baer, a Bellmore resident, has a musical family — her husband, Paul is a businessman who is also a professional pianist in a chamber group. Her younger son, Seth, 31, is a professional bassoonist who will play with his mother at the Bethpage library in April and Adam, 34, now a writer, used to play violin.