2021 Guest Suits
Dan Cahill
Day Job: Daniel J. Cahill, Ph.D. is a managing principal and CEO at HSD Metrics, a human resources analytics firm serving Fortune 500 companies. Dan is active in the community and is currently Immediate Past Chair of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce.
Musical Past: Dan has been an accidental entertainer for the last 35 years. He was accepted into the University of Cincinnati CCM in 1985 in the Musical Theatre program and was a featured performer in two main stage shows as a first-year student. After leaving the program, he leveraged his musical experience to fund his higher education. He was a mainstay in the Kings Island shows from 1986-1990 and also subbed as a lead singer in two bands on the weekends. As a graduate student, he played guitar and sang country music in small bars and ranches in Colorado and Washington state. Dan is honored and humbled to be among the amazing talent in the Suits That Rock family and is hoping for a forgiving and over-served audience.
Chrissy Dunn-Dutton
Day Job: Chrissy is a Litigation Partner with the law firm of Buechner Haffer Meyers & Koenig Co., LPA. Chrissy represents individuals and businesses in state, federal, and appellate courts throughout Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana and handles a range of pre-suit and general civil litigation matters, including family law matters.
Musical Past: Chrissy has always enjoyed music and has been singing and performing since childhood. Her first performances were on her grandpa’s picnic table stage, grade school talent shows, Christmas pageants, and while serving as the cantor at weekly school mass in the 7th and 8th grade, as well as in high school. During her junior year of high school, Chrissy won a regional competition to qualify to compete at the Kentucky State Fair in the Coca-Cola Talent Classic. While performing at the fair, she was discovered and chosen to perform regularly at the West Point Kentucky Opry house. She did so throughout the remainder of high school and college, performing her favorite classic and modern country hits with the house band. During and after college and law school, Chrissy has performed at various talent contests, friends’ weddings, and local festivals and events, including the CBA’s annual Bench Bar Social and annually at the CBF Rock the Foundation Charitable fundraiser. She also co-wrote and performed a song with rock and roll hall of famer, Bootsy Collins in 2012.
Freidoon Ghazi
Day Job: He is a cardiologist with Trihealth Heart Institute practicing at Good Samaritan and Bethesda North Hospitals.
Musical Past: Freidoon started playing the violin at age 9. His first teacher was his mother who was an accomplished violinist. After graduating from the music conservatory in Tehran, he went to medical school and continued to play with the university orchestra and other small bands. He is currently the director of the Cincinnati Persian Music Ensemble. He has played with the community symphony orchestras as well as rock bands playing the fiddle.
Brian Kaeppner
Day Job: Brian is a manager with GE’s cyber security team for Microsoft Identity Services and has over 20 years of IT experience, supporting businesses all over the world. Brian earned his bachelor’s degree from Miami University and MBA from Xavier University. He is also an active member of XU’s Professional Mentor Program. Musical Past: The musical bug bit Brian early in life, singing and plunking the piano keys in the living room as a toddler. At age 14, he learned to play guitar while becoming a notable singer in school – but never joined a band in high school or college. In early thirties, he was offered an opportunity to join an acoustic cover band, which rekindled his knack for performing. Ever since then, he’s been active in a variety of musical outfits, playing both covers and original material in Cincinnati. 2020 marks his 2nd appearance as a Guest Suit.
Louis Kelly
Day Job: Louis D. Kelly is the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Kentucky’s 54th Judicial Circuit consisting of Boone and Gallatin Counties. In this role, he is the Chief felony prosecutor in Kentucky’s 4th largest judicial circuit containing more than 140,000 people and handling approximately 1,100 cases each year.
Musical past: Louis has played percussion for over 20 years and has performed with ensembles including the University of Kentucky Indoor Percussion Ensemble, the Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps, and several bands including the Apparitions, the Whiskey City Ramblers, and the Wade and Murphy Band.
Shari Lauter
Day Job: Qualitative Research Consultant, Maestra Services…A History grad from UC, Shari holds an MEd from XU. She’s fortunate to have had two professions: market researcher and certified Music & Spanish teacher. Currently a practicing researcher, she owns Qualitative Research consultancy, Maestra Services, where she develops research protocols and moderates depth interviews & focus groups on interesting topics from medical devices to avocadoes to motorboat engines to pharmaceuticals to Boeing 747 avionics to just about every product ever made by P & G. She’s especially proud of her role in developing the award-winning Spiriva Elephant campaign. (Did we mention focussing on one thing at a time has never been easy for her?!)
Musical Past: Shari Lauter tinkled her first piano keys at age 6, adding violin at age 11 – it was an instant love affair! Concertmaster of Middletown High School Orchestra, at 17 she was playing bars before she could drink in them with her first punk rock band, Get Christy Love, on Farfisa organ and amplified violin, then went on to found Cincinnati’s lushpoptronica 80s duo, Perfect Jewish Couple (perfectjewishcouple.com), composing and recording backing tracks for performance. Her love of audio engineering developed into part-time gigs running sound for venues and rock bands. She added electric bass & world percussion in the late 80s, co-founding Drums for Peace, Cincinnati’s first world music group with whom she traveled to Cuba to study with masters of the tradition. She’s played bass with Cincinnati area pop, Americana & pock cover bands (Bingo Smith, The Deciders) and currently plays Brazilian surdo with Cincinnati Samba School. She loves sitting in with rock & blues bands on electric fiddle. As a composer, she’s twice received grants from City of Cincinnati Arts Allocation Committee, served as Composer-in-Residence for Congregation Beth Adam, created & directed music for community dance event Global Water Dances-Cincinnati and is scoring Sci-Fi animation series, Ravens of Mars (youtube.com/skyvengerscartoon). Recently she’s added functional art to her creative output (hand painted silks, architectural mosaic; sharisilks.com) and is currently working on two books, a memoir on her family’s exit from 1939 Germany and Septad Theory: A System of Atonal Composition. (She turned down a full violin scholarship to Miami U: “If I’m stuck in a practice room for 8 hours a day how am I gonna do anything else?”) She’s honored & thrilled to be part of Suits 2021!
John Vitucci
Day Job: John was a Sourcing Specialist and Senior Contract Administrator with General Electric Aircraft Engine Group in Evendale for 37 years, of which 25, were spent coordinating and guiding one of GE’s largest supplier of aircraft engine parts, for the timely delivery of those parts to facilities all over the United States, to the tune of 200-250 million dollars, on average, each of those years. He retired in April 2017.
Musical Past: John started playing trumpet when he was 11 years old, all through schooling, and played for hundreds of wedding receptions during the 1970’s and 1980’s with the Market Square band. Since then, he has continued performing with multiple community bands, including Westside Community Band, currently for 20 years, in addition to playing with the Lee’s Junction Big Band since 1996. He also played in pit orchestras for many theatre plays, particularly with Oak Hills productions between 2000 and 2010.
