Karen

About Karen Kohler

Karen Kohler is a story singer, writer, guide and community builder. She emigrated from Germany to Long Island as a child, the daughter of an airline executive. After completing her BA in international studies and music at the University of Arizona, she spent her early adulthood in Texas where, in 1999, she gave up a top position with a Fortune 500 company to follow the call to singing. Karen leads the European cabaret arts in New York City as singer, director, ensemble leader and historian. 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 guides a diversity of artists in fulfilling their creative calling and lectures at the university level on the European roots of small stage performance art. Karen fuels her unconventional life in art and love (she stays married to her college sweetheart) with intemperate adventures and travels. A passionate writer and blogger, she recently publishing her prose and poetry on her blog, RudeWoke. Visit www.karenkohler.com for info on concerts, workshops and events.

The Quickening and The Quieting

By |2024-04-18T09:42:14-04:00April 15th, 2024|Guided Meditation, News & Events|

Just in time for spring (and autumn for those of you in the southern hemisphere), I offer my newest guided meditation, The Quickening and The Quieting. The focus of our meditation today is the whole matter of creating which encompasses bringing in as well as releasing. In the northern hemisphere, spring has sprung and everything's coming alive. A quickening [...]

Unwrapping the Present and Letting the Lovely

By |2023-12-13T20:48:14-05:00December 13th, 2023|Guided Meditation, News & Events|

Welcome to my newest guided meditation, Unwrapping the Present and Letting the Lovely. In time for the holidays, this 7-minute centering breathwork exercise is intended to help you find rest and peaceful presence amidst the flurry of seasonal activities. Guided by your own breath and accompanied by soft guitar, you'll connect with your body, mind and heart, as well as [...]

Speak Low: The Music of Kurt Weill at Lincoln Center in October

By |2023-09-27T13:57:29-04:00July 21st, 2023|Key Dates, News & Events|

On Tuesday, OCTOBER 17, 2023, I'll be returning to Rose Hall at Lincoln Center for the opening night of the Mabel Mercer Cabaret Convention and our enticing evening honoring a German-American master composer in, "Speak Low: The Music of Kurt Weill." Stay tuned for details about my newest arrangement of Weill's classic Bilbao Song (with lyrics by Bertholt Brecht). [...]

Latest publication in Harmony Magazine

By |2023-09-29T13:28:04-04:00May 2nd, 2023|Key Dates, News & Events, Prose & Poetry, Writing|

Karen Kohler's prose piece, Songs, Psychedelics & Seizures: A One-Woman Flow, has been published in the 2023 edition of Harmony Magazine of the University of Arizona's Medical Humanities Department. This piece is an adaptation of the 40-minute monologue she presented at the Science of Consciousness Conference at the University of Arizona at Tucson in April 2022. [...]

Body As Instrument

By |2022-12-08T10:29:28-05:00December 8th, 2022|Guided Meditation, News & Events|

Welcome to my newest guided meditation, Body As Instrument. Our body is an instrument. How we tune it, use it and care for it, what we put into it and everything we incorporate becomes part of our life story. In our practice today, we bring awareness to the body as it stands in service to art. Being comfortable in [...]

Science of Consciousness Conference (Presenter)

By |2024-04-01T16:54:13-04:00April 20th, 2022|Key Dates, News & Events, Performance Art, Public Speaking|

I'm honored to present my monologue, "Songs, Psychedelics and Seizures: A One-Woman Flow" at the Science of Consciousness Conference 2022. Sponsored by the University of Arizona in Tucson (my alma mater), this year's program includes such consciousness studies leaders as Roger Penrose, Dennis McKenna, Robin Carhart-Harris, Katrin Preller, Christof Koch, Elizabeth Krasnoff and Deepak Chopra. I've chosen a topic, Flow, [...]

Modeling for Takarazzi & Mieko Mintz

By |2023-09-29T13:27:08-04:00March 1st, 2022|News & Events|

It's always been my pleasure to model for Japanese-born photographer Takako Suzuki Harkness whom I first met when she was snapping shots of our nightlife scene of New York City and offering her unique perspective and careful eye for the details. Now she teams with Japanese fashion designer Mieko Mintz to showcase Mintz' unique designs and I was again [...]

At Home in the Transition

By |2023-07-20T15:27:35-04:00January 29th, 2022|Guided Meditation, News & Events|

Welcome to my newest guided meditation, At Home in the Transition. Home is in-born, it's instinct. It's a place, a memory, a feeling, a whiff of belonging that can grow into a real longing for one's own, for one's people, for people period. Inside this pandemic, we haven't had the reflections of the "home" that's inside us and that [...]

Deutschlandlied – Hatikvah

By |2022-07-15T16:54:01-04:00January 27th, 2022|Singing, Stagecraft|

On this Holocaust Remembrance Day, Noa Levy and I offer Deutschlandlied-Hatikvah, our reimagining of the German and Israeli National Anthems performed acapella as the closing piece of our show "The Home I Love." Our concert was sponsored by the German Consulate of San Francisco and presented at Temple Emanuel-El on June 7, 2017. One day we'll sing it live for you [...]

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