ABOUT
Karen Goldfeder's work celebrates the power of music to communicate and strives to speak clearly in the universal language of music and sound. She believes Jimi Hendrix was right to point out that music doesn't lie, but that it can also weave ornate subtleties, juxtapose layers of parallel truths, state the obvious with visceral power, make our hearts and bodies dance, teach us to listen and to understand. Karen's music reflects the wide-ranging influences encountered through her eclectic performing career: from Igor Stravinsky to Billy Strayhorn, Joni Mitchell to György Ligeti, Gustav Mahler to Guillaime de Machaut. Like all inhabitants of the contemporary world, she attempts to construct a unified fabric woven of seemingly disparate threads.
Born in Brooklyn, NY, Karen learned to play the guitar at four and spent her early childhood trying to sing like Odetta. At thirteen she earned her Musician's Union (Local 802) card as a French horn player and sang the alto solos in the Pergolesi Stabat Mater. She has performed in jazz and folk clubs, in musicals, in churches and temples, and on the operatic stage. She has toured and recorded with choral ensembles including New York Virtuoso Singers, Voices of Ascension, Musica Sacra, the Gregg Smith Singers and The Choir of Trinity Wall Street and with jazz artists including Bobby McFerrin, Abbey Lincoln, and Jay Clayton. She has premiered and performed works by numerous contemporary composers including Patrick Zimmerli, Eric Whitacre, Hayes Biggs, and Han Lash. She has been featured in stage productions of Kurt Weill's Mahagonny Songspeill, the original musical The Big Window at the Edinburgh Fringe, and in John Adams' Death of Klinghoffer at BAM. She can be heard on dozens of recordings, including the MasterWorks complete Stravinsky choral works conducted by Gregg Smith, Frank London's klezmer-rock musical A Night in the Old Marketplace, and Mary Jane Leach’s haunting Ariadne’s Lament.
Karen's choral compositions and arrangements have been performed by The Eastman Chorale, The New York Treble Singers, The Marble Collegiate Church Sanctuary Choir, The Choir of St. Francis Assisi, The Choir of St. Paul's Episcopal; The Great Neck Choral Society, The Women’s and Girls’ Choir Festival, the Skyward Singers, and Kiitos: A Vocal Quartet. Several new chamber music works, including the song cycle Love Letters, premiered at the Eastman School of Music in March 2023.
Karen's lifelong love of film music has become her primary focus. Her score for Melissa Hacker's short experimental memoir Letters Home won acclaim at the New York Film Festival. She has just completed the music for Hacker's short documentary 256,000 Miles from Home, to be released this summer. Current works in progress include the orchestral score for Hacker's feature length documentary Ex Libris, two podcast themes, and a staged science-fiction drama.
Creators—and the audiences they hope to reach—are drowning in a cacophony of information and stimuli of all kinds. Music can calm and protect or invigorate and strengthen. When composing for film or setting text, Karen frequently strives to create music that invites audiences to focus on difficult, complicated, confusing, and/or heartbreaking content. She tries to bear witness, to bring attention to the moment, and to reaffirm the persistent and underlying joy that underpins all human experience. She aims to hold a space where no emotion is unsafe, too big, or too small. And, for better and for worse, she maintains a sense of humor.
Karen attended Manhattan School of Music's preparatory division and Oberlin College & Conservatory. She holds a B.A. from SUNY Empire State and an M.M. from the Eastman School of Music's Beal Institute for Film Music and Contemporary Media. She is a member of AGMA, ASMAC, and the SCL.
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