Karen Knecht, M.F.A.

Karen Knecht, M.F.A., received her early musical training at the Juilliard School of Music. She went on to earn a Bachelor's degree in music from Indiana University where she studied with Sidney Foster and Abbey Simon.  She also holds a Master of Fine Arts Degree from The State University of New York at Buffalo where she worked with Frina Arshanska Boldt.  She has appeared as a duo piano partner with Tania Fleischer, Joseph Matthews, and as assisting artist with the duo Arshanska and Boldt.  Other duo partnerships have included performances with cellists Elizabeth Anderson and Richard Treat, and Los Angeles Philharmonic violinist Mischa Lefkowitz and hornist Brian Drake.  Ms. Knecht's performances include recitals at the Lincoln Center Library/Museum and Merkin Concert Hall in New York where she premiered the Fantasy for Piano by Emma Lou Diemer.  A faculty member at Chapman University for the past eighteen years, Ms. Knecht's students have been state and national competition winners and have gone on to attend the nation's finest conservatories.