Karen working at the Theater of the Châtelet, Paris for Sting in the Rock-Opera "Welcome to the Voice" as his vocal consultant/coach.

Karen in action as a voice teacher

I trained with Karen back in 2001 in Paris for about eight months. I was at a stage in my career where I knew where I wanted to be be but needed the right guidance to allow me to acheive my goal.
I never had enough confidence in my voice but Karen managed to bring out the best out of me and give me the correct technique, confidence and inspiration I needed. This gave me self belief which urged me to follow my dream....musicals. With the knowledge and confidence I gained from Karen I could walk into a singing audition and hold my head high knowing that I was good enough to get the job, and here I am now, in one of the best shows around....'The Producers'.

Kelly Homewood - "The Producers", London, England 

I have been working with Karen Acampora (Nimereala) for about the last eight mouths. Karen is one of the first people I have worked who has such an thrower understanding of what it means to be a singer, when I talk about singing I am not only talking about holding a tune or singing your way through a song, I am talking about the mind set, the technical ability and the physical requirements that make up a fully trained professional singing. During the time I have spent with Karen my voice has become a weapon. I am learning a strong technical base that I believe I will carry with me during my whole professional career.

Cameron Greentree - Moulin Rouge, Paris 

Karen Acampora Nimereala is a very talented and imaginative teacher. She has a special contact with students;they enjoy and value considerably their classes with her and moreover they think of her as "the best voice teacher" they ever had and praise her personal, as well as professional qualities. She knows how to get the most out of students, give them the ease and confidence to discover their instrument and explore it to the best of their abilities. She is an extremely dedicated person, who has very high standards for herself and her students.

Dr. Monique Middleton- Director Sarah Lawrence College, Year Abroad Program- Paris,France 

This seminar has been a unique opportunity to improve my technic and to correct persistent mistakes thanks to Karen's personal training that is the continuation of the year-round work. I could also learn more about the interpretation of arias I have been working on for some time now, through a closer look on the context and the characters. Karen's experience, knowhow and personality is very rich and is a great help to her students and she helps us to come into our own as singers to be. One could see a real improvement through this week and above all, in a very friendly atmosphere !

Elisabeth de Kermoysan

Cara Karen,
sono stato veramente fortunato ad inconntrarti!

sei sempre così gentile e disponibile nell'aiutarmi!

Non penso averlo mai detto sin d'ora, ma sei la mia eroina!

Luciano non dimentica e ti ringrazierà sempre per starmi vicino in questi momenti della mia vita!

ti ringrazio sempre per le tue dolci parole,
e per il tuo sostegno morale.
Fara tutto quello tu pensi sia giusto per la mia voce....

Luciano Lamonarca

Singing with Karen is utterly the most inspiring experience in my entire musical life.  She brings to her teaching the passion of her own music and teachers, plus an extensive background, and it is impossible to do anything but sing to your utmost ability, every single lesson.  The improvement one experiences in one lesson is phenomenal, and at the end of a week, the voice is a whole new instrument, constantly evolving under Karen's careful guidance.  Teachers who communicate such love and enthusiasm for their music, and for your music, are few and far between, and Karen is truly a jewel in the world of classical singing, and of music as a whole.

Meris Goodman

"The last six months I am taking lessons with Karen. I have been to several teachers before, but never have I met someone so devoted and so caring and above all - so interested in the students progress. Karen understood exactly the issues I deal with in my singing, she knew how to address them very efficiently. As a result, a few months since my first lesson, I have made great progress, I am well underway towards my goal. Karen has the knowledge and the expertise to get it through to the student. Thank you Karen for everything you've achieved untill now, you got yourself an ardent admirer and I look forward to our next lesson."

Jonathan Lewin-cantor

Karen is truly a rare teacher. She is the first teacher I have ever had whose first concern is making sure I understand how my voice works and why, because of this I have become better in hearing when I sing out of pitch or do not breath correctly and then being able to correct these mistakes. In my eight years of lessons I have never been so self aware of my instrument and I can only imagine that it will improve with the swift guidance of Karen. After a tough year in Paris my lessons with Karen were the one thing that helped reaffirm my confidence as a performer and returned that love that was once extinguished.

Maggie Robinson

La Boheme by Lizzy McDaniel

Poet you have the soul of a millionaire
you are two oboes coupling in the cold heart of a Passion
an incurable leitmotif
you lick the rim of my singing bowl
you dust your garret with colored powder
you are lit from every angle
you simmer in your youth
you are a good monkey
you are the best part of being short (as in a war)
you are a blush in Staindrop church
you don’t bite except—
you keep a door open so we can touch you
you pick a bombshell bouquet
you leave a grand piano on the lawn
you build a Memory Palace and watch it collapse exhausted
you abandon yourself like the subject of a sentence
you practice octaves for fondness shame and giggling fits
you leave the melancholy womb to serve your people
you prefer philosophy to perfect health
you schedule Belle Heures
you are a generous mood
you “chantepleure”
you kid the lyrics
you steal spring and misplace a portion
you forget to breathe in your sleep
you don’t want to breathe without words
you praise the air’s legs
you wear the sun as a skirt
you restore the peacock’s vanity
you puff like a rheumy chimney
you take a chisel to antique faces
you are ethically dazzled
you are I don’t know what and what I don’t know
did you ever love me?
you are the end of doubt

Commedia dell’arte by Lizzy McDaniel

A pantomime to hear
better in the mirror
enormous silence
between animals
more glassy airs
than any friendly
stained church

*

The sandman brushed
a praline from his lapel
now it’s you I and the sky
waiting for buckets

*

No one was sung until
juggling fell
into genius sleep
fingers counting nothing
it’s easy, said the monkey,
under starry harmonies
waking I guessed the wrong bed
reclined to find him

*

The idiot chase after
breath down the street
mouthed kiss
or grace note held

*

A prayer to jewelry
breast! I holler snow!

*

Columbine looking glad
to watch a skillful wasp
mount any petal
it seems so gentle

*

As to touch a round kind
of woman crammed
in this panting climate
close as they come
vaulted thighs arise
or belfries swell
swathing the pleasing
sound of vespers

*

Tap the goblet
post-tonic
who’s hungry
in your stomach
Baroque is it?
how many mouths
may attempt it?

*

To forget hell and still have it
holding us up
to acquire German and never die
was a wakeful way of swooning
I said to the salesman give us musical time
the rest leave to famous dust
hurry the world grows tall

*

That bird, I heard it cough
peeking under its wings
to discover their meter
in two movements
“irrational”
maybe just ticklish
remember the parrot

*

Is there room for another
bright face
in you warbling
through the original
still breathing surface
a match struck
then the virtuous flush
as you alight

*

One girl at least several times
caught you up the avenue
grin with greater parts of your body
“tumbling whore”
oh you wished she were everyone alive
you’d never met before you died
yet your companion cried hey!
a pack of angels escorts her
I didn’t see her wave though
you weren’t supposed to

*

The clock’s ill-mannered visage
spaces hours ages apart
seasons spilling over in the flat world
it’s hard for my map to stand up straight
so physics wins the prizes
solving it all except
how many years make us up

*

Put your heads away
for another day
noses closed to hide
the distance smelled in petals
some too early memory
safe in earth beneath
an umbilical tree
or else my nest

 

Voice lessons from a professional Opera singer

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