Karen Earle Lile

Karen Earle Lile is an American conceptual artist, performance artist, author, lyricist, art director, piano appraiser and provenance researcher from San Francisco, California.

Author and Lyricist

Lile wrote her first poetry at the age of 8 and her first article was published by the Los Angeles News Herald and Journal.  By high school, she was editor and author in the Runes Magazine. She went on to provide a support behind-the-scense role providing independent research for investigative journalists in over 30 international media outlets, including People Magazine, the London Times, 20/20, Dateline and Don Rather’s 24 Hours.  She began writing lyrics for songs in 1982 and during the pandemic, in 2020 was commissioned by the Oakland Symphony to write the Libretto for “Break Free on Wings of Music” a tone poem based upon a piece of prose that was the initial concept.  This has now become an International Project.

Conceptual artist and Performance artist

Karen Earle Lile received a Bachelor of Arts Degree with Highest Honors from the University of Texas.  Her current art projects in the contemporary art genre are:

• Break Free on Wings of Music Project
• Art on Piano Project
• Hands Preserving History Project
• Two Weeks Inside Project
• What Music Looks Like Art Project

Art Director

Lile is Executive Producer and Art Director for the USPS Building Bridges Special Postal Cancellation Series. This partnership which she brokered between USPS and Building Bridges, has created pictorial postal cancellations since 1996.

Producer (short films)

Lile was concept creator and producer for the first classical music videos to be broadcast across the United States on the A&E Network which in 1985 had 18 million cable viewers. This broadcast coincided with MTV emerging as a medium for record production companies to use music videos to promote the albums of Rock and Pop stars. The novelty of a classical music video featuring a solo pianist and the inside view of piano hammers hitting strings, contrasted to the high production rock music videos it caught media attention from coast to coast. This was at a time when independent artists were rarely featured in the media, and bookstores and music stores only carried major labels. The video was titled: Kendall Ross Bean: Chopin Polonaise in A Flat. Karen Earle Lile was nominated as producer for The Kendall Ross Bean: Chopin Polonaise in A Flat Classical Music Video for an ACE Award for Outstanding Programming Achievement[ at a ceremony on May 18, 1987 by the National Academy of Cable Programing in the Ninth Annual System Awards for Cable Excellence in the category of Music Single. The video is 6 minutes and 55 seconds long. It was a created in a partnership arranged by producer Karen Earle Lile between Polara, an Independent Record label, and Tele-Communications Inc. doing business as Televents of Contra Costa in Lafayette, CA.  She has produced multiple short films and several features, which have been broadcast on cable television and PBS

Record Producer (with Tony Terran as mentor)

Tony Terran, Karen Lile’s uncle, introduced Lile to the LA recording session scene in the early 1980’s, including taking her to the MGM Sound Stage in the LA area.     Lile returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1982, and produced music albums and voice overs at Fantasy Studios in independent intermittent projects from 1985 and continued until this large independent recording studio closed in 2018. In 2021, she began producing recording sessions at Skywalker Sound in San Francisco.

Lile was the concept creator for the “Two Weeks Inside” project and built the partnership with KCSM 91.1 Jazz producing 20 recording sessions in two weeks with over 60 artists and resulting in a benefit album for KCSM-Jazz that included contributions by Kendall Ross Bean, George Winston, Allison Miller (drummer), Taylor Eigsti, Mimi Fox, Rob Dehlinger, Tammy Hall, and other Grammy award winning artists and San Francisco Bay Area recording artists who had recorded many albums in the studio over the years. KCSM (FM) featured the album extensively and raised over $300,000 USD for the station during their Feb 2019 fundraiser.

Piano Researcher and Appraiser

For over 40 years, Lile has accumulated a knowledge of pianos and provenance research skills and has appraised over 3500 pianos, including some pianos of famous people, worth several million dollars. Her research, consulting and reports have been used by lawyers, district attorneys, CPAs, insurance adjustors, heads of music departments in Universities, piano dealers, piano rebuilders, musicians and piano brokers over the years. She has also served as an expert forensic witness.

The Piano Connection

All pianos in this Society History Project are connected to Piano Finders of which Lile is a partner and co-founder.  All timelines in the project are connected to Karen Earle Lile.