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A native of Leiden, Holland, Karel was raised in Calgary, Canada and became a professional musician in 1970. In 1973, he studied jazz arranging and composition at the
prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, and completed a degree in
secondary music and mathematics education at the University of Victoria in 1981. He
has taught both privately and in public schools for students of all ages, has been a
featured specialist at numerous jazz workshops, and has taught improvisation for 5 years at the Metchosin International Summer School for the Arts. Karel has composed for film, television and video since 1985. He wrote the source music for the film In the Company of Men, which won the Filmmakers' Trophy at the 1997 Sundance Festival, and was an official selection for the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. He has also co-composed for several internationally televised series, among them Good to Go for the CHUM Network, Police Academy - the series(Fox Network in USA, and networks in ninety countries), Undersea Explorer(Outdoor Living Network et al), Safari - Ocean Adventures, (on Discovery Canada, NHK Japan and others), Take Off children's series (on Family Channel, CTV et al), and The New Body Moves, an aerobics series (Canada-wide, also shown internationally), along with innumerable educational, corporate and travel videos, receiving national and international awards such as the Peabody Award, the ITVA world-wide award, and many others. Television credits also include a great many themes and scores for documentaries, news, drama and children's programs broadcast world-wide. Karel has been keyboardist and/or musical director for a great number of musicals, stage presentations, and concerts, and his playing talents have led to engagements all over the world. His first solo album Keys, recorded in 1988 and distributed by Midsummer Music, has received wide critical acclaim. An album of Christmas carols entitled Do You Hear What I Hear? followed in 1991. Since then, on the Midsummer label (internationally distributed by Tandem Music), Karel has written, performed, and recorded four music and nature sounds albums, solo piano albums Piano by the Sea and Orca Suite, and orchestrations Classics for Relaxation (with Mark Bracken), and Wings of Summer. An orchestral suite co-written with Kenneth G. Williams for the Butchart Gardens was released in 1993 on the Holborne label. Another piano solo CD, Thinking of You - Themes of Friendship has been released by Midsummer in 1996. A jazz trio CD of original tunes entitled Cat Fud was also completed early in 1996. Since then, Karel has completed two solo piano concert albums, Blue/Green and Suites and a jazz album, kr3+ featuring the trio with special guests Gary Karr, Dan Lapp, and Paul Wainwright. In the field of children's music, Karel was musical director and keyboardist on Birds, Beasts and Babes by Pat Carfra (the lullaby lady), chosen by the Ladies' Home Journal as one of the six all-time best children's bedtime albums, keyboardist and arranger on John Demers' My Backyard, and George Dixon's series of children's musical stories. Outside of his musical career, Karel served a term as councilor and two terms as mayor in his home municipality, the District of Highlands, between 1993 and 2005, and during that time also served as Vice Chair of the Greater Victoria Library Board, Chair of the Capital Regional District Arts Committee, and on the CRD board for four years. In his spare time, Karel still loves to play the piano and plays in clubs, concert halls and in the studio whenever possible. He writes jazz tunes for his own and other groups, and has played with jazz greats such as Bud Shank, Ian MacDougall, Pat LaBarbera, Don Clark, Floyd Standifer, Roy Reynolds and many well-known vocalists. He's regularly asked to play at jazz festivals as both leader and sideman.  |
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