Karen LeFrak: Composer, Author, Volunteer & Poodle Breeder
Karen LeFrak has filled many roles throughout her life, wife, mother, grandmother, teacher, author and poodle breeder. She is also an accomplished composer with 13 studio recordings so far, a catalogue of 300+works and a performance history that spans worldwide by such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, the Shanghai Symphony and the Mariinsky Ballet Orchestra.
LeFrak, who is married to New York real estate developer Richard LeFrak, has embraced each facet with exceptional passion and vigor, and she spoke to us about her very fulfilling life with warmth, humor and a “pinch-me” sense of gratitude.
Fairytale Romance
Even the story of her marriage is like a fairytale romance; she first met her husband Richard when she was 15 and he was 17, at a party attended by both of their families. “His father took me by the hand and said to Richard, ‘I‘ve known this little girl since she’s born. Ask her to dance,’” Karen said. “And Richard asked me to dance, and I looked up at him – he was six foot three and I was five foot two – and I thought, oh my God, he is just amazing, with a great big shock of blond hair and the bluest eyes. I had a mad crush on him.”
They dated on-and-off for seven years, and he proposed on Valentine’s Day of her senior year in college. “We got engaged and 54 years later, here we are.” They have two sons, five grandchildren and two poodles, and split their time between Manhattan, Southampton and Miami.
Thriving Music Career
Ms. LeFrak is a natural-born musician who began playing the piano by ear at age three, and in the sixth grade wrote her first song, which was performed at her Merrick, Long Island school. “It was called I’ll Sing, and when I played it for the music teacher she had the whole school sing it at an assembly.’” LeFrak’s father sat in the front row, beaming. “I’ll sing for pleasure. I’ll sing with delight, I’ll sing with my heart, I’ll sing with all my might,” LeFrak recalled the lyrics, laughing, “They sounded like a Hallmark greeting card.”
In high school she joined the choir, and her talent took her far. “I learned the rudiments of harmony because we were singing in four-parts: soprano, alto, tenor, bass,” she explained. “If you have a good ear, you can apply that to the instruments in the orchestra’s woodwinds, brass, and strings sections.” She excelled in music theory classes. “I could always count on my music grade to bring up my whole average.”
Life took her in different directions, and she only became serious about a music career as an adult, once her children were grown, but it was always alive in her. LeFrak even taught music at her children’s nursery school. “I didn’t want to leave them alone at the school, so the director of the school found a job for me.
“I was sorry I didn’t major in music at Mt. Holyoke College where I earned my BA degree cum laude so around 1986, I returned to school to pursue a master’s degree in musicology from Hunter College.” Her award-winning thesis which won the Dean’s Award in Arts and Humanities surveyed the commissioning activity of the New York Philharmonic from 1842 – 1986. “I was inspired to study piano seriously after hearing a friend perform the 4 Chopin Ballades at a house concert. I was so taken by her performance that I couldn’t get out of my chair. I arranged for lessons and practiced several hours a day. After a while, when my piano coach went to the hospital, instead of playing my repertoire, I composed my first solo piano miniature. My teacher was impressed and encouraged me to continue!” I felt I could never play or interpret what I heard as well as I wanted so I made a conscious decision to give up playing and only compose instead. It was my goal to have my grandchildren (whom I didn’t even have yet), know that their grandmother was a composer.” I wrote a lullaby for each when born. Polly’s lullaby later became the Whale’s Theme in Sleepover at the Museum.
From piano, she went on to study composition and with the help of notation software, and two very able professional musicians, a conductor and scholar, taught herself to arrange music for multiple instruments. There followed solo, chamber and orchestral compositions which were performed by ballet companies and chamber groups and orchestras basically by word of mouth.
Composing Everyday
LeFrak continues to compose the piano miniatures every day and describes them as having lyric melodies with interesting harmonic structures that say the most with the fewest notes. “Where does the inspiration come from to make 300 individual paintings?” She replied when asked about creating that number of compositions “For the most part, the one word that drives the origin of my works is – emotion.” Even as a child, when LeFrak improvised, her mother told her she could always tell how she felt by her music.
Brimming With New Projects
And she’s been busier than ever in recent years, with the pandemic providing much time for reflection, creativity and inspiration leading to recording and releasing the thirteen studio albums since 2021. “They include such titles as Interlude, Tomorrow, Gratitude, Clarity, Continuum, Awakening, and more. The latest releases have titles such as Penumbra, Gemstones, Verdure and Echo and there are 40 solo piano pieces being recorded as I type.”
Superstar violinist Joshua Bell praised her first album project, Interlude, saying, “Karen LeFrak is a true renaissance woman. One can find much-needed peace and comfort in this beautiful collection of piano miniatures.” Music industry powerhouse David Foster also weighed in on her debut album, saying, “Karen LeFrak’s melodies are haunting, memorable and simply complex. Melody is king and Ms. LeFrak does not disappoint to even a nano second!!!”
This fall LeFrak released a holiday album, Christmas Cookies, consisting of chamber music. Her music has been included in hundreds of curated playlists and has been streamed over 33 million times through Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora and other streaming sites.
Venues: Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, White House & ABT
LeFrak’s works have been commissioned and performed across the United States, Europe, Russia, and Asia including David Geffen Hall and the Koch Theatre at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Moscow’s Kremlin for the 250th anniversary of the Bolshoi Ballet School, Symphony Space in New York, National Sawdust in Brooklyn, Bethel Woods Arts Center, Festival Napa Valley, and the White House – where her musical works Acceptance and the New Yorker Trio were honored at an International Women’s Day Luncheon.
Miami Concerto debuts at U.S. Capitol
A highlight this year was the premiere of Miami Concerto for guitar and orchestra by the Miami Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maestro Eduardo Marturet with the GRAMMY-winning guitarist Sharon Isbin as soloist. Its first movement was performed at the National Symphony Orchestra’s annual Labor Day concert on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, also with Isbin and conducted by Maestro Enrico Lopez-Yañez. It is scheduled to be performed at the Aspen Music Festival the summer of 1925, as well as the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra that same summer. A recording is in the works of a chamber orchestral version of this piece which will be conducted by Enrico Lopez-Yañez with Sharon as soloist and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.
“Cover” assignment – Beyonce & Rihanna
LeFrak was floored to be among those asked to submit music for a new television series Queen Charlotte, a spinoff of Bridgerton. “They gave me the assignment of taking a Beyonce and Rihanna piece, and develop classical versions of them,” she said. “I had such fun doing that!” In the end, her composition did not make the cut, but the experience proved useful – one of the instruments she chose was the celesta, a piano-like instrument with a delicate, bell-like tone similar to a glockenspiel. When it came to doing her Christmas album, she featured it. “In the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker, it’s the very high, crystally, tinkly instrument which immediately says joy. So the celesta made the piano and chamber pieces on my album sparkle.”
Declaration of Independence 250th Anniversary
LeFrak is excited about a new commission she’d just gotten, as part of the National Symphony Orchestra’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. The orchestra has begun commissioning composers around the country, and they’ll present the works throughout that year.”
She’s already hard at work on it and will give it to the master orchestrator Bill Ross to lend his magic.
Children’s Books
At the same time she launched her career as a composer, Karen LeFrak made her debut as an author of children’s books to much acclaim. Her first two volumes, Jake the Philharmonic Dog and Jake the Ballet Dog, introduced young people to the worlds of music and dance. The idea for this canine character came from LeFrak’s work with the New York Philharmonic, where the principal stagehand did actually have a mixed-breed terrier named Jake, a well-loved presence backstage, serving as mascot, greeter and stress-reliever.
As an author, LeFrak has been invited to speak and read at schools, museums, bookstores, and concert halls throughout the country, including the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Miami’s Frost Museum of Science, and New York City’s famed public library, among many others.
In her third book, Best in Show, LeFrak shared her passion for raising and breeding standard poodles. Her more recent book, Sleepover at the Museum, published in 2019, was named a 2020 International Literacy Association CBC Children’s Choice title. She decided to write a musical composition to Sleepover, and that has now been played all over the world. After its premiere in Miami, it was performed in Shanghai, Beijing, Washington DC, California, Omaha, Montana, Singapore, Winston Salem, Nashville, New York with a ballet version in Chicago and Guatemala and will have future bookings in Winston-Salem and Anchorage. Can you just imagine how inspired the venues get performing this work. “I’ve witnessed conductors and orchestra members on stage in pajamas!”
While LeFrak has successfully published four books, she’s written a total of seven – the others did not make it into print. She had the unpublished books illustrated and bound and gave them to her grandchildren. “One of them was about their dog and themselves, and another was about a dog who went to the hospital to bring comfort to medically fragile children and adults. LeFrak started the pet therapy program at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York and brought her own dogs there. She brought her dogs to NYU Hospital and to the piers to comfort victims and families of the 911 tragedy. Of this she says, “It was one of the most rewarding volunteer jobs I have ever had.”
Fifi at the Fontainebleau
LeFrak’s next children’s book, Fifi at the Fontainebleau has a marvelous backstory. Her husband Richard was a minor investor in the new Fontainebleau Las Vegas. At the Vegas property, the owners wanted to pay homage to the classic Fontainebleau Miami Beach, which once had an ultra-private, opulent spot known as the Poodle Room frequented by Frank Sinatra and his Brat Pack pals. So they’ve installed, in the Las Vegas hotel, a members-only Poodle Room on the top floor, with sweeping views of the city, including the Sphere.
Karen, a poodle breeder, got a call from Jeff Soffer, the hotel’s owner, saying he needed a poodle. “I said, ‘You what?’” LeFrak laughed. “He said, ‘I need a poodle. We have to have a live mascot for this place because it will broaden the appeal for families and even gamblers who want a little chuckle or want to see it a little more ‘humanized.’”
Dog lover LeFrak insisted she’d have to interview the person who would be going to own the pooch, because she would not want this dog around a hotel “with nobody loving it.”
“We found that the hospitality manager actually wanted a poodle. So, I interviewed him, and I decided he could be “dog-worthy” because I’m very strict about who’s going to love my dogs,” LeFrak said. “So I found an available female, a four-month-old puppy from Chicago who was shipped over to the hospitality director who is now going to be the proud owner of this puppy who you could just eat up with a spoon, she’s so cute.” They named her Josephine Wyld Card Fontainebleau but call her “Fifi” for short.
“We flew out for the opening of the hotel, and I fell in love with Fifi, who commands the attention of everyone who stops, pets her and takes pictures with her. And she’s really fulfilling the idea that Jeff and the staff had for a mascot of this enormous, casino and resort. And I said, ‘Move over Eloise at the Plaza… Here’s Fifi at the Fontainebleau.’”
The book’s first draft, crafted along with the expertise of Karen’s former publishing editor, is already done, with a wonderful illustrator in mind. We envision plush toys and possibly other “Fifi” merchandise that hotel guests can take home as mementos.”
Passion for Poodles
As LeFrak’s kids got older, she decided she wanted a dog, even though her husband and sons weren’t crazy about the idea.
She’d had a poodle as a child, so the breed already resonated with her, and once a veterinarian friend introduced her to a big white standard poodle, she was hooked. “I saw a woman walking down the street with two white standards. I got out of my chair at a restaurant and ran down the street following her and said, ‘Where did you get them? I need them.’”
The woman’s breeder in Massachusetts had a waiting list, but someone had backed out and he offered LeFrak the poodle which she accepted. “Little did I know that Richard called him the next day and said, ‘I don’t think she should have a dog because she’s in graduate school.’” She was determined. “So I challenged Richard. I took Jamie, my youngest son, who didn’t think we were really going to get a dog, and the vet who was instrumental in telling me I wanted a white standard poodle, and we brought home this dog named Ruffle. Well, Ruffle became the love of everybody’s life.”
When Ruffle was 10, Richard encouraged her to get another dog just in case anything would happen to Ruffle. Her breeder only had a female who was destined to be a show dog. The more he said she couldn’t have her, the more she persisted and eventually became the proud owner of Ale Kai Diamonds and Pearls who brought Karen into the world of dog shows. “I was introduced to people who felt about dogs the way I did. It was wonderful to be with like-minded people, like people who go on golf outings or tennis outings or whatever. It’s a way to connect with another world.”
She knew nothing about breeding poodles, but she learned quickly, and produced many champions, including the legendary Ch. Ale Kai Mikimoto on Fifth, who was the top-winning poodle in America, earning 88 Best in Shows and multiple Westminster group awards. One winner of 50 Best in Show awards called “Ru,” was recently retired to breed and hopefully produce another prize champion.
Volunteering: The Phil, MSK & Central Park
LeFrak is a member of the President’s Council of the Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering. She previously served on the New York State Council on the Arts and as President of the Women’s Committee of the Central Park Conservancy and of the Volunteer Council of the New York Philharmonic. She is on the board and a member of the executive committees of the New York Philharmonic and the Kennedy Center Board where she serves as chair of the artistic committee.
Her husband has been generous to several institutions including the American Museum of Natural History, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Amherst College, the Prostate Cancer Foundation, the Kennedy Center and Prospect Park. He graciously donated the lobby of the Philharmonic’s new David Geffen Hall, which Karen calls the most beautiful gift imaginable. “People use it daily as a place to hang out,” she said. “And there’s a great projection wall that features the concert. It’s phenomenal”
Renaissance Woman: A capacity for can-do-it-all
As LeFrak says when she was designated one of the top 10 women who light up the art scene over 50 a few years ago,” At my age today, I have more fun with my work. I’m very conscious of doing a good job, but I have more confidence that I’ll achieve my goals. And I have no time for things that are toxic – I seek out experiences and people who bring positive energy. Life is too short to invest in anything that doesn’t create joy.”
Whether a wife, mother, grandmother, teacher, author, poodle breeder or composer, Karen LeFrak seems to be able to juggle AND do it all. An inspiration to women, she is admired, head-strong, and always marches on with a captivating smile. “But I can’t cook, “she says.
