About Karen Mendes

Karen Mendes was born in Caracas, Venezuela. She started learning music in El Sistema, a transformational movement and cutting-edge program to inspire children with music integrated throughout the school curriculum. Throughout her childhood and early teenage years, she has been part of several orchestras and ensembles in Venezuela and the United States, at the regional, all-state and national level. She has performed with renowned musicians like Sir Simon Rattle, Gustavo Dudamel, Michael Morgan, Pinchas Zukerman, among others. In 2014 she moved to South Carolina, where she continued her music education at the Charleston County School of the Arts. In 2017 she started her studies at Furman University as a Music Performance major, studying with Dr. Thomas Joiner and Dr. Andrew Carlson. Karen went on to get her Master's degree with a Graduate Assistantship in Performance and Pedagogy from Northwestern University where she studied with Prof. Blair Milton.