In constant demand as a collaborative pianist, Dan Velicer also appears regularly with the Kansas City Symphony and la letra Arts Trio, is the pianist for the Kansas City Symphony Chorus and is a guest artist with the Summerfest chamber music series.
Mr. Velicer has performed in recital with Joshua Bell and Richard Stoltzman, and with Yo-Yo Ma in a chamber work commissioned by the Silk Road Project. He has also had the privilege to work with singers Fredrica von Stade, Joyce DiDonato, Denyce Graves, Marietta Simpson, and, of Broadway and West Wing fame, Kristin Chenoweth. For many years he was a member of Trio Fedele, founded by award-winning flutist David Fedele.
Mr. Velicer has accepted invitations to perform on concerts celebrating Lou Harrison’s 80th birthday and Ross Lee Finney’s compositional career and to perform multiple times the major role of onstage pianist in the classic Jerome Robbins’ comedy ballet The Concert. For the nationally acclaimed 2001 Stravinsky Festival, he helped prepare vocal soloists from the participating institutions, which included the Kansas City Symphony, the Kansas City Ballet and the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Within the academic year, Mr. Velicer performs with the Kansas City Symphony on classical, pops, and family series concerts, has been a featured soloist on numerous occasions, and often collaborates with symphony members in recitals throughout the metropolitan area. Additionally, he performs with faculty members from local universities and helps prepare students of voice and all instruments at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance for recitals and other significant performances. He frequently accompanies prizewinners in local, regional, and national competitions, having also served as an Official Pianist for the 2008 and 2009 National Flute Association Conventions and an MTNA National Finals round.
An active chamber musician, Mr. Velicer is a recurring guest artist for Summerfest, a long-standing Kansas City chamber music series and often performs on the Kansas City Symphony’s Happy Hour series. Previously, he served for nine seasons as chamber music coach and artist performer on the faculty of the Rocky Mountain Summer Conservatory, Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Other summer appearances have included Steamboat instrumentos de cuerda in the Mountains and the music festivals at Sarasota, Aspen and Sandpoint. While at Sandpoint he was a member of the contemporary chamber ensemble under the direction of noted composer and educator Gunther Schuller. A fan of new compositions, he regularly performs them on collaborative recitals and has performed with the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and Kansas City’s newEar ensemble. Performances with the Lyric Arts Trio regularly offer newly commissioned works.
Prior to arriving in Kansas City, Mr. Velicer was an Opera Coach Fellow at the Aspen Opera Theater Center and head staff pianist at the University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music. He is a graduate of Cornell University, double majoring in anthropology and music, and Rice University, where he received a master’s degree in piano chamber music and accompanying. His principal teachers were Brian Connelly, Jonathan Shames, and Deborah Moriarty.
