"Sergio Barer is a composer and pianist who was born in Mexico City and studied with Cuban pianists Marcia Freyre and Marcia Freyre de Andrade in Mexico and then with Mario Feninger and Ian Brooks in the United States. He made his pianistic debut in Mexico in 1985 and appeared on TV in a show called Estudio 54 several times. In the late eighties he injured his left hand and performed music for one hand for several years, recording the CD “Piano Music for One Hand”. Then, through several years of work with Dorothy Taubman and Nina Scolnik, he was able to resume playing with both hands. In the nineties he started to compose, being taught the basics by his mentor, Mario Feninger, and when he returned to playing in public, he did so performing his own music. In 2005 he recorded his CD “Almost Songs”, which was called “sensational listening” by The Jamestown Post-Journal. In 2006 ERM Music recorded his First Piano Concerto in Kiev and issued it as part of his Masterworks of the New Era series. His Second Piano Concerto was recorded in 2013 in Bratislava and came out in the CD “Memories of my Childhood”. Through the advice of his friend Stephen Paulus, he started to pursue the composition of choral music and in 2017 “Moses, An Oratorio”, was premiered by the the San Fernando Valley Master Chorale in Los Angeles, which named him his composer in residence, a position he still holds. He was recently named 2019 McKnight Visiting Composer by the American Composer Forum and he’ll be doing a composing residency in Minneapolis-St.Paul. "
