Karen Mueller: Autoharp & Mountain Dulcimer

Be sure to take advantage of this new opportunity to learn from Karen online! She is offering lessons on autoharp, mountain dulcimer, guitar, ukulele, and mandolin. Besides being an expert instructor with over 30 years' private lesson and national workshop experience, Karen has 100s of printed lessons and songs that she can draw on and share with online students via email. She can also write out music and tab for any of these instruments, either during a lesson or for a added fee, to offer a truly custom…

CD Review:  Karen Mueller, Accent on Dulcimer:  A Retrospective
by Steve Eulberg for DPN Fall 2019.

Karen Mueller’s Accent on Dulcimer is a 15-track retrospective from a storied performing, recording and teaching career.  I own and listen to all of her music, but this is a masterful culling from 3 of her releases  [Clarity (1993),  Stillpoint (2000),  Landscape of the Heart (2007)] + one new track of a courting dulcimer duet with the late David Schnaufer.  

First I must say, this is an entrancing recording…

Karen's longtime dulcimer student Grant Olson has won first place in the National Mountain Dulcimer Championship in Winfield, Kansas. The talented 17 year old has been studying with Karen for six years. He played arrangements of classical, ragtime, and old-time fiddle music, and wowed the judges and crowd with his fine performance. Congratulations to him!

The West Bank School of Music was a staple of the Twin Cities music scene since the 1970s, and sadly closed its doors at the end of March, 2018. Karen had been on the faculty there since 1989, when she first moved to Minneapolis. She has been able to find a new studio space to teach her students from West Bank and anyone preferring a more north/east metro location, near the University of Minnesota. Email Karen for more information on this new studio.

Following Karen's January teaching week at the Folk School, she talked with host Leah Dolgoy about her musical past and teaching philosophies. See the full interview here:

https://blog.folkschool.org/2014/02/05/karen-mueller/

Review of “Solo Autoharp”

Autoharp Quarterly, Winter 2013

By Stew Schneider

In the unlikely event there is anyone

connected with the autoharp who has not

heard of Ms. Mueller, this much be said:

she is either the most talented performer

on the autoharp who regularly teaches,

or she is the most gifted teacher who

actively performs.

It is not only her technical perfection

that makes her playing so riveting. It is

her impeccable control of timing and

dynamics, the downright musicality of

her playing and…

Minnesota Public Radio has run a nice story + audio interview with Karen that you can find here:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2013/03/15/arts/dulcimer-virtuoso-karen-mueller

MacPhail Center for Music recently awarded four $25,000 McKnight Artists Fellowships to Minnesota’s finest performing musicians. For the 16th year, MacPhail administered the competition, a component of the McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowships program, which is intended to provide recognition and financial support to Minnesota musicians as they explore and develop their skills. The fellowships ultimately serve to enrich Minnesota’s cultural community. Of the 94 soloists and ensembles that applied for the…