ABOUT THE AUTHOR

KAREN NORTH M. Mus., B.A. (Hons.), Dip. Ed. (Music).

Karen is a music teacher, mentor and book author. She is passionate about bringing music into the lives of children and adults and has enjoyed working in music education for the past 40 years.

Karen’s teaching has been described as creative and dynamic. She was Director of Music at Sydney Grammar (Edgecliff) School and has also worked in government schools at primary and secondary level. Karen is fascinated by the process of learning and embraces the idea that children learn better when they are having fun. She uses games in both class and flute teaching as exemplified in her books “Fun & Games for Music Lessons” and "More Fun & Games for Music Lessons 2".

Karen is the author of the popular and enduring flute teaching method “The Young Flute Player” and she has arranged many works for flute duets and trios, including “Festive Flute Fun”. With a keen desire to bring more contemporary repertoire to her students, and to support living composers, Karen embarked on her first commissioning project in 2020-2021. The result of this was “Lyrical Flute Legends”, a collection of 20 works for Flute & Piano, featuring exclusively commissioned works for intermediate level flute. This was received so enthusiastically by teachers and students around the world, that it was followed by more commissions in 2022, culminating in a collection of 30 pieces for solo Flute, “Inspiring Flute Solos”. In 2023, Karen commissioned "Lyrical Flute Encores", and in 2024 an exciting book of 40 new works for beginner and early intermediate students, "Lyrical Flute Miniatures".

Karen loves helping teachers and has mentored a number of younger teachers. For over 25 years she has been invited to present at conferences both within Australia and internationally. In recent years she has offered many online workshops for music teachers and supported them with resources in her free newsletter and blog.

Karen is also keen to promote performance opportunities for students around the world and has organised an annual international flute competition since 2021, with esteemed judges including Sir James and Lady Galway, Lorna McGhee, Ulla Miilmann, Viviana Guzmán, Joshua Batty and Dr. Brice Smith.

Karen is currently teaching flute and working on an exciting new flute project as well as collaborating with specialists in violin, clarinet and saxophone to create more repertoire for young players of these instruments. Karen has now commissioned over 90 works from living composers.

Karen’s books are available worldwide and are now being translated into other languages.