Raised in the San Francisco area, Karen began studying the piano at age five and took up the violin, viola, and French horn soon after. She earned her Bachelor of Music degree at Indiana University and her Masters at Carnegie Mellon in Pennsylvania, where she performed with the Pittsburgh Opera and substituted with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Her primary teachers were Atar Arad and Joseph DePasquale. During the summer Karen has performed at the Luzerne Music center in New York and the Spoleto Festival in Italy. She currently works at the Brit Music Festival in Oregon. Karen spends her off hours running in preparation for her next marathon, swimming, and reading murder mysteries.