Olson, Karen

Violist from Minnesota whose father was a preacher, and who began playing in church as a teen. She attended Juilliard, New York University and Yale, collecting a masters and doctorate. Her dissertation, The Solo Viola’s Role in Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, is available online.

Artists and groups with whom she has worked include David Aberth, Tony Bennett, Ken Crampton, Sammy Davis, Jr., Ellypsis, Liza Minnelli, the New York Pops, the New York Viola Society, and Frank Sinatra.

On 1^st November 2008, she performed a concert at the Sage Theater in New York City. She offered up a “Springtime, Swingtime, Stringtime Concert” at Hofstra University on 1st May 2010. On 24^th July 2010, she gave a recital at Omega in Rheinbeck, New York.

She and Dave Abert and Ken Crampton teamed up for an interactive program entitled “HeartStrings and Beats” in the Unity Chapel of Light in Tallmadge, Ohio. The audience was encouraged to participate in the performance by playing body percussion or a percussive instrument provided by the musicians.

In addition to—or in coordination with—her viola playing, she is also a certified practitioner of Theta Healing and Reiki master, using music to assuage people’s emotional, mental and physical challenges.

Recordings on which she appears include her own Earth Angel, Seasons of the Soul, and Timeless Being, and Ellypsis by the Ellypsis trio. She also has her own record label named Soundview Records.

In the field of music education, she has taught at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, and Rutgers, and arranged and edited the music instruction book, Galamian Scale System.

Sources:

Olson, Karen

Navigation