Having pursued music from a young age, first on piano then flute, Karen played classical music through college where she minored in music. Later Karen began tenor saxophone and attended jazz classes in graduate school and through her career as a community planner in Seattle. Finding that jazz had not answered the musical questions she had, she returned to flute and baroque music, her favorite period of classical, to perform chamber music with musicians from regional orchestras.
She first recognized Brazilian choro as the music of her dreams while attending California Brazil Camp in 2008, and has immersed herself in it since then. She joined the Centrum Choro workshop in its second year 2010 and has participated annually since. In 2010, she also formed a choro duo with Paul Korsmo, which expanded into a quartet over time, now known as Chorando na Chuva, Portuguese for Crying in the Rain.
Wanting to gain the skills to better share the beauty of choro with others, both in performance and teaching, Karen worked on a Masters in World Music Studies (aka ethnomusicology) from the University of Sheffield in England by distance learning. Out of her thesis, she developed a book-length study of choros with lyrics, to support the return of that past practice to today’s. She regularly gives workshops at Northwest Folklife and BrasilFest, as well as hosting rodas de choro, notably the monthly open session at the Couth Buzzard that has been going for twelve years. For the last three years, she has produced the well-attended Brazilian Choro Music Festival at the Couth Buzzard.
