Twenty-one-year-old Anton Kot was born in NYC and grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and along the Connecticut coast. He has recently headlined at the 2022 Litchfield Jazz Festival and 2023 Pittsfield City Jazz Festival as a drummer, pianist, and composer. His star-studded acts have included saxophonist Don Braden, Albert Rivera, bassist Avery Sharpe, trumpeter Jean Caze, pianist Caili O’Doherty, and Tyler Bullock II. Receiving a standing ovation, Litchfield festival Founder, Vita Muir exclaimed in A Triumph at 27!, “One audience member called Anton ‘a highlight in the Festival’s history.’ Praise well deserved.” “One audience member called Anton ‘a highlight in the Festival’s history.’ Praise well deserved.” – Vita Muir, Founder, Litchfield Jazz Festival – A Triumph at 27!, August 9, 2022.During the New Haven 2022 International Festival of Arts and Ideas, Anton played his twenty-five minute piano concerto, Let’s Try This, on the main stage with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra (NHSO) directed by Alasdair Neale. Anton was commissioned by the NHSO before the pandemic, causing the piece to evolve into a representation of different phases of the Covid outbreak as it entered social awareness in 2020. Let’s Try This is a self-reflection where a pianist rediscovers their instrument under the stress of induced isolation. It was designed to be performed differently each time as a nod to the insistent volatility of Covid’s effect on daily life…