53-Word Bio

German-American singer KAREN KOHLER lives for the unconventional in art and love. Since 2000, she has propelled a critically acclaimed performance career from her base in New York City. Lately she has turned her love of words into the writing craft and begun releasing her prose, poetry, lyrics and monologues into the world.

128-Word Bio

KAREN KOHLER emigrated from Germany to Long Island as a child. After completing her BA in international studies at the University of Arizona, she moved to Texas where in 1999 she gave up a top position with a Fortune 500 company to follow the call to art. She has since led a critically acclaimed career in NYC as singer, director, ensemble leader and mentor, lecturing at the university level on the roots of small stage performance art and guiding artists in fulfilling their creative calling. Karen fuels her unconventional life in art and love (she stays married to her college sweetheart) with intemperate adventures. Lately, she has turned her love of words into the writing craft and begun releasing her prose, poetry, lyrics and monologues into the world.

175-Word Bio

Internationally celebrated singer-actress KAREN KOHLER lives for the unconventional in art and love. She emigrated to the U.S. from Germany as a child, learned English in a gospel choir, married her college sweetheart and was being paid handsomely in stock options when the call to performance seized her. Since 2000 she has fueled a critically acclaimed performance career from her base in New York City. Karen is passionate about story songs, crossbreeding in seven languages a decadent range of theatrical and musical styles from jazz and Delta blues to classical, rock-folk and cabaret. Winner of the Nightlife, Mac, BroadwayWorld and Backstage Bistro awards, the iconoclastic Kohler is the founding producer of the award-winning Kabarett Kollektif and cabaret festival, Kabarett Fête. She is a sought-after director, lectures at the university level on the European roots of small stage performance, and guides a diversity of artists in stagecraft and fulfilling their creative calling. Lately she has turned her love of words into the writing craft and begun releasing her prose, poetry, lyrics and monologues into the world.

Full-Length BIO – 355 words

KAREN KOHLER is a singer, writer and champion of artists. She emigrated from Germany to Long Island as a child, the daughter of an airline executive. After completing her BA in international studies with a music minor at the University of Arizona, she spent her early adulthood in Texas. In 1999, she gave up a top position with a Fortune 500 company in Austin to follow the call to singing back to New York.

Karen is a scholar in the history of cabaret and leading interpreter of its form. She has won all of New York’s major live performance awards – Nightlife, MAC, BroadwayWorld, and BackStage Bistro – as singer, producer and director.  She performs in cabarets, concert halls, festivals, consulates and embassies worldwide, crossbreeding a range of theatrical and musical styles – from jazz and Delta blues to classical, rock-folk and cabaret. She is founder of the award-winning ensemble, Kabarett Kollektif, and Kabarett Fête (a festival of the cabaret arts) and through her company, Fin Alley Arts, produces her own concerts, workshops and recordings, as well as the work of other artists.

Karen’s passion for stagecraft extends to teaching. Her development as a performing artist has included both traditional and esoteric approaches to performance. In 2010, she was awarded a fellowship in New Delhi where alongside her concerts, she gave master classes and was herself a student of the ancient Indian practices of breathing (pranayama), meditation, chakra studies and the tantric arts which she has integrated into her own teaching method.  She has taught across the U.S., England, Germany, India, Australia and the Caribbean. Students students have come from as far away as Australia to attend her private 2-week colloquia in New York City. Together with her husband Mac, Karen has established the world’s only collegiate scholarship in cabaret at Long Island University where the two met in 1983.

Karen fuels her unconventional life in art and love with intemperate adventures and travels. A lifelong journaler and passionate writer, she recently began publishing her prose, poetry, lyrics and monologues. Visit her website at www.karenkohler.com for information about her concerts, recordings, workshops, podcast and events.