Born in Dubuque, Iowa, Karen Melander graduated from Indiana University in Music and received her Masters Degree from Boston University. She spent several years in Europe singing on the major stages of Germany and Austria. Her children, Aaron and Bridget, were born in the Loire Valley of France and in Berlin, Germany. In October, 2008, she received her Doctor of Ministry from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, through San Francisco Theological Seminary and Starr King School for the Ministry.
Karen married Orville Magoon in August, 1988. As a vintner in Guenoc Valley, Karen was responsible for bringing carmenère into California after years of quarantine in Canada and Geneva, New York. In 1994 it was certified for Guenoc Valley, and in 1996, after cloning sufficient budwood in Oregon, the Magoons had it planted on the Tephra Ridge, the hillside vineyards of the Guenoc estate. The carmenère clone planted in the USA is known as the Guenoc-Melander clone.
Karen has also continued to compose as well as perform in California and throughout the United States. She has written wine songs and romantic songs as well as songs devoted to the culinary arts, songs for peace and songs about travel. As an advocate for children and human rights, she has created songs for teaching English as a foreign language, songs about the coastline and songs specifically for children. Her musical, Lillie, A Musical, has been performed in Hawaii as well as Northern California. She has just completed the songs for her musical about Georgia O’Keefe, and will be performing her work, Eve II, a poetic monologue with song, in San Francisco in March, 2001.
Karen has performed Marguerite in Faust, Olympia in The Tales of Hoffman, Blonde in The Abduction from the Seraglio, Nanetta in Falstaff, Rosina in The Barber of Seville, Norina in Don Pasquale, Adele in Die Fledermaus, Carolina in The Secret Marriage, and Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, as well as many other major roles of the opera stage. She continues to sing opera and concert repertoire as well as Lieder and French art songs in the Bay Area. She performs a concert of Debussy, Fauré and Hugo Wolf as well as some of her own songs in March, 2001 in San Francisco.
In addition, Karen performs jazz and Broadway in wine country and the Bay Area. She sang on the St. Helena Wine Train in February, 2001. She performs her own jazz and contemporary songs as well as standards in benefit performances for human rights and children’s advocacy.
Karen continues to perform, accompanying herself for the golden oldies from Broadway, playing frequently for retirement communities. She is also still available to teach or coach, particularly German song repertoire, and is active in her community as incoming President of North Beach Neighbors and Chairperson for Unitarian Universalist Forum at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in San Francisco. She is guest minister at Unitarian Universalist communities throughout northern California and beyond, often weaving her songs and poetry into sermons on forgiveness, peace, renewal and hope.
Karen’s publications include I Love Wine and other songs, Songs of Sea and Shore, Lillie, A Musical, Wiggly’s Adventures with English, Willie and Wilhelmina, Achatinella, A Snail Story, and A Culinary Voyage with Lillie Langtry.
Karen’s compact disk recordings include: Songs of Innocence (Dr. Lynn Wheeler, Pacific Union College, at the piano), including Benjamin Britten’s Charm of Lullabies, Poulenc’s La courte paille, and Mussorgsky’s Nursery; Footsteps in the Sands of Time (Frank Fanning at the piano) including selected Brahms Lieder, Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -leben, selections from the Italienisches Liederbuch by Hugo Wolf, and Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis as well as selections from the Ariettes oubliées; Lillie, a Musical (piano arrangements and accompaniment by Frank Fanning), her musical about Lillie Langtryand and Georgia,(piano arrangements and accompaniment by Frank Fanning), her musical portrait of Georgia O'Keeffe.
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