San Diego native Karen Moe Dirks grew up in a house filled with music. Her mother was a cellist with the San Diego Symphony for twenty-two years, and her father, who taught high school english literature, built a pipe organ in their home for her mother. Her brother, Emory, plays both classical and blues guitar.
Appointed by Daniel Barenboim to the CSO viola section in 1997, Karen began her career in the first violin section of the San Diego Symphony the same month she graduated from high school. Karen studied violin with Daniel Lewis (USC) and with Gilbert Back (a former member of the Berlin Philharmonic). As she worked toward her BA in Mathematics she continued violin studies with Josef Gingold and Joseph Silverstein; she later studied viola with Donald McInnes.
Principal violist of the San Diego Symphony from 1992 to 1997, Karen had served as that orchestra's concertmaster for four years. Concertmaster of the San Diego Opera Orchestra for seventeen years, she was also the concertmaster of the La Jolla Chamber and San Diego Master Chorale Orchestras. She was principal violist of the New Hampshire Music Festival from 1985 to 2000.
Karen has appeared as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Diego Symphony, Music of the Baroque, the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra and the La Jolla University Symphony. Twice principal violist of the Mainly Mozart Festival, Karen has been a featured artist of La Jolla Summerfest and was a founding member of the Silver Gate and Artist Chamber Ensembles in San Diego. In addition to her frequent participation in the CSO Chamber Music Series she has performed chamber music in ten states and in Germany.
Her husband, Douglas, a cellist and marine architect, is President of Dirks Design and Consulting. They have two children: Olin, a manager of resource planning for locomotives for the Union Pacific Railroad, and Jelena, a busy chamber ensemble pianist and oboist who frequently performs with the CSO.
Karen enjoys cross-country skiing, cycling, and kayaking with her family, as well as Norwegian rosemaling (decorative painting), and gardening. She plays a viola made in 1724 in Brescia, Italy, by Antonio Pasta
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