Karen Foster began performing professionally in 1969 as a singer at Six Flags Over Texas. At that time, she also directed a high school choir and taught music theory.
She lived in Florence, Italy for 6 months, where she was choir director at the American Church. She returned to Texas for graduate work, then taught junior high choir for 5 years. After singing in a dance band for several years, she moved to Los Angeles, where she performed regularly at area clubs and was a guest performer at the Masquers' Club.

Next came Aspen, Colorado, where Karen performed as Fraulein Kost in a dinner theater production of Cabaret and taught private voice lessons. She then moved to Athens, Ohio, where she sang and played piano in nightclubs.

Karen has taught voice privately and at Texas Woman's University since 1988 and has been director/pianist of a Dallas-based senior citizens' entertainment troupe, the Reflection Singers, for 14 years. She also plays and sings with a Dixieland band.

At TWU, Karen has had roles in Steel