A celebrated native of Queens, NY, Karen Walwyn is an accomplished Concert Pianist/Composer and Recording Artist for Albany Records. When invited by the Center of Black Music Research of Chicago to perform and record the premier recording of the Florence Price Concerto for Piano, noted music critic Bob McQuiston exclaimed that “Walwyn provides a magnificent account of the concerto displaying her considerable technical skills.”

Known for her recordings of two volumes of music by American composers entitled Dark Fires, Ms. Walwyn performed select works from her CDs at her New York debut, reprising her performance for on air recordings with National Public Radio, and WFMT Chicago just to mention a few. In response to her musical tour, the Cleveland Plain Dealer said, "Walwyn was fearless throughout, managing every challenge with precise fingers and heroic command of textures."...“The pianism of Karen Walwyn lends to her artistic abilities as a communicator.” In addition, the American Record Guide stated that, "Walwyn is a confident and impressive pianist...," and according to the Washington Post, "Karen Walwyn shows considerable range...she is virtuosic, meditative, energetic...and vividly evocative ...."

Making her compositional debut recently at the Kennedy Center, Ms. Walwyn received a tremendous standing ovation for her work for solo piano entitled Reflections on 9/11. Robert Schulslaper of Fanfare Magazine evoked thoughtful emotion when he reflected upon Ms. Walwyn’s performance. “Imaginatively conceived and executed, it both disturbingly transposes the catastrophe into appropriately cataclysmic sound and artistically suggests the aftermath’s lingering sense of numbing devastation.” The demand for concerts of this seven-movement ‘tour de force’ continuously carries her across the nation for command performances.

Dr. Walwyn was recently awarded a Mellon Faculty Fellowship for the 2011/2012 academic year from the John Hope Franklin Institute at Duke University where she completed her debut work (Choral/Solo Piano/African Percussion) entitled Of Dance & Struggle: A Musical Tribute on the life of Nelson Mandela, debuted by the Elon University Chorale under the direction of Dr. Gerald Knight.

Ms. Walwyn remains busy with concerts of new works, works from the standard literature as well as her own works, master classes and lecture recitals both domestically and internationally. Some recent concerts include appearances in Johannesburg-South Africa, Barcelona-Spain, Tenerife- Canary Islands, Salzburg-Austria, London-England, Nice- France and locally to numerous music halls and university campuses including the University of Michigan, Duke University, the University of Indiana, the University of Miami, and the University of Hawaii. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.