Susan Dantoni & Jan Kolar 🇺🇸 USA

PIANIST & CELLIST

Susan Dantoni is a pianist, music director and collaborator in the Rochester, NY area. Originally from Staten Island, NY, she has performed extensively in musical theatre, classical performance, vocal and instrumental accompanying and liturgical venues. She is currently completing a degree in piano performance at Roberts Wesleyan University where she is the current Presser Scholar.  She will be pursuing a Masters degree in Collaborative Piano at the Townsend School of Music in the fall.  She is artistic and music director for “Into the Unknown-An Opera Theatre Adventure” at RWU this spring and was the music director and accompanist for Cosi Fan Tutte (RWU)last spring; she is also the current music director for The SpongeBob Musical (Main Street Players) and was the music director for Newsies (Main Street Players); the  Spongebob Musical and 13 the Musical at MJTS (Stages).; other favorite credits include music director/pianist for the RWU theatre production of For $ale; music director/ keys 1 for Rent (Stages); music director/keys 1 for 13 the Musical (Lyric Voices/ Fringe Festival); music director and pianist for Fairy Tale Ending and the Twelve Dancing Princesses (Main Street Players/Fringe Festival.  She is the organist/pianist for the Rochester Christian Reform Church. Susan is the winner of the 2021-2022 RWU Concerto Competition and performed as soloist with the Roberts Symphonic Orchestra in March 2022. She resides in Pittsford with her husband and daughter. When not behind the piano, she can be found working as a physician for the IMA Group.

Jan Kolar began cello studies at age 11 in his home town of Madison, CT, studying with Ann West of Guilford, and later with Steven Thomas of New Haven. At age 17, he won the annual New Haven Youth Symphony Concerto Competition, culminating in a performance of the Dvorak Cello Concerto at Yale’s Sprague Hall. Inspiration to play came from his grandfather, Vaclav Stoupa, principal cellist and founding member of the Prague Chamber Orchestra, famous for performing without a conductor. Mr. Kolar holds the Bachelor of Music, Master of Music, and Performer Diploma from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University-Bloomington, where he was a winner of the Cello Concerto Competition. His primary teachers at Indiana were Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi and Janos Starker; he continues his studies under the mentorship of Prof. Emeritus Alan Harris of the Eastman School of Music. In addition to performing locally, Mr. Kolar is a pilot for a major airline, and a competitive martial artist, having attained the 3rd degree black belt from Master Kim’s Taekwondo Institute in Penfield, NY.