Arizona Bach Festival 2012 - Karen Knudsen
Growing up in a large musical family meant that Karen was always surrounded by music and started performing at age 2. Her mother taught her piano at age 5, and at age 10 she began playing the cello. Her solo career was born when, at age 14, she performed Handel's Messiah, where she played cello in the orchestra and would then emerge from the orchestra pit to sing the alto solos. After studying vocal performance at Brigham Young University, where she toured with the BYU Singers, she moved to Phoenix in 1997 and began singing with The Phoenix Chorale (then The Phoenix Bach Choir) and the Arizona Opera Chorus. She has performed as the alto soloist in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with both the Phoenix Symphony and the Arizona Bach Festival. She was the featured alto soloist in the Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with The Phoenix Boys Choir, performed the title role in Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans with the Vivaldi Festival, and has performed Bach’s St. Matthew and St. John Passions. She has recently performed Karl Jenkin's Stabat Mater with the Choirs of the All-Saints Episcopal Church where she currently serves as the Alto section leader and soloist. Karen and her 7 real sisters, The Knudsen Sisters, recently released a Christmas album titled Joy.
Karen lives in Gilbert with her two amazing yet "spirited" children, without whom, she would be lost.