Karen Celia Heil, a longtime resident of San Francisco, has a thriving practice playing and teaching American old-time music on fiddle and guitar and performing locally, nationally, and internationally with bands such as the Bucking Mules, KC & the Moonshine Band, Plaid Strangers, and many other luminaries of old-time music. She has won awards for her playing at Clifftop with the Bucking Mules (First, First, Second and Fourth) and for her fiddling (Second), as well as at the Santa Barbara Fiddler’s Festival (First and First). Karen is a skillful, fun, and enthusiastic teacher and teaches at camps and festivals, holds classes locally, and teaches private lessons. Her performing experience includes being cast in an award-winning production of the musical Fire On the Mountain (2015) and the Kate Weare Dance Company production and recording of Brightlands (2011). A natural live wire, she brings lots of spark and current to her teaching practice and to old-time music at large.
Interviewed by Raquel Paraíso, 9/1/2020.