Karen Mack is a multi-award winning singer/songwriter based in NYC, with creative roots planted in jazz, folk, pop, and swing. Over the last twenty years, she's established herself as a popular favorite of audiences and critics alike in many of New York City's top clubs and performance spaces. Her varied musical influences are apparent in her style, which meshes a warm jazz/folk sensibility with an affinity for richly textured vocal harmony, wordplay and improvisation, creating a truly unique listening experience, whether you're looking for moving ballads, soulful blues, or fierce in-the-pocket swing. LGNY says “in addition to her sense of humor, she has the kind of voice one longs to hear…her flawless placement, appealing style and dead on performance are electrifying!” and The Village Voice echoed “Mack can knock anything with a beat out of the ballpark.” She loves finding songs that surprise audiences, inviting listeners into the story, and creating concerts where laughter is just as welcome as quiet moments.

“CATCH & KEEP”, her latest solo album with producer/arranger Peter Eldridge from the internationally acclaimed vocal group New York Voices, dropped June 28th, 2024, and features Peter Eldridge (piano), Jesse Lewis (guitar), Matt Aronoff (bass), Jared Schonig (drums), Ben Wittman (percussion), and guest appearances by Darmon Meader, Nadje Noordhuis, and Elliot Roth. "Catch & Keep" is a fun mix of contemporary jazz classics, including works by Dave Frishberg, Bob Dorough, Nellie McKay, Dave Cantor and Betty Bryant, alongside originals that speak to how we hold onto things and how we let go, in ways from playful to profound. Since its release, it's garnered praise from press, radio, and listeners worldwide, and recently was awarded the 2025 prestigious LaMott Friedman Award for excellence in recording through the Manhattan Association of Clubs, whose other musical award winners for 2025 include Gabrielle Stravelli, Marianne Solivan, Nicolas King, and Tedd Firth. 

For years, Peter Eldridge has been at the forefront of both the jazz and the singer/songwriter realms as a vocalist, pianist, composer, and arranger, with a slew of critically-praised albums of his own and with NYV, including two Grammy-Award winning projects with Paquito D'Rivera and The Count Basie Orchestra. While Peter and Karen have a decades long friendship as writers and musicians, "Catch & Keep" marks the first commercial collaboration for the pair, and future plans are in the works for continued songwriting and a June Christy project for 2027/2028.

Karen made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2019, her Jazz at Lincoln Center debut in 2022 with the award-winning vocal quartet Those Girls, return appearances at JALC 2023 and 2024, and her Rose Hall debut as a featured solo artist fall 2025 in the prestigious Mabel Mercer Foundation's Cabaret Convention opening night celebrating Cy Coleman. She also was part of the 25th Anniversary Gala for the NY Pops,  Handel’s “Messiah Rocks - A Joyful Noise” at NJPAC, and was featured in the UK premier of “Build Me A Bridge - The Music of Miller and Hammonds” at the Bridewell Theater in London’s West End. Club appearances include Birdland, New York's Town Hall, Symphony Space, Feinsteins/54 Below, Pangea, The Wallace, Jazz on Main, B.B. King's, Nashville Jazz Cave, Parker's in Austin, The Bottom Line, Caroline’s, Sony Hall, The Bitter End, Tula's Jazz & The North City Bistro in Seattle, London's Battersea Barge and Crazy Coqs at Brasserie Zedel, and numerous college keggers. Currently, she can been seen in tandem with New York Times hailed jazz pianist/vocalist Elliot Roth regularly in their jazz/swing residency at Pangea (NYC), now in its fifth year (2025 MAC Award, Best Vocal Duo.)

As a songwriter, she was acknowledged for her debut recording "Take That" (Miss Prim Records) in a cover story by Show Business Weekly on promising writers on the rise, in prestigious, well-established company that included Julie Gold (From A Distance), Amanda McBroom (The Rose), and John Bucchino (Grateful). She is a 2024 Bistro Award winner for excellence in variety and versatility of performance; she's also a fourteen-time MAC Award winner for vocal performance and songwriting (MAC/ASCAP), as well as for her current vocal harmony work in NYC pop vocal quartet Those Girls(thosegirlssing.com), and for 12+ years prior as half of a reckless retropop vocal duo with talented singer/songwriter Michael Holland. 

Always drawn to rich and complex vocal harmony, Karen was a performing member and co-managing partner of DOO-WA-ZOO, a five-part contemporary a cappella group with a pop/rock repertoire of original compositions and creative covers back before Pentatonix ruled the aca-earth. Featured on the nationally broadcast VH1 special "Takin' It to the Streets", the vocal band headlined at major venues on the east coast such as The Bottom Line, The Bitter End, The Ironhorse, New England Conservatory, Princeton University, Penn State University, and the 92nd St. Y, NYC. All members of the group were contributing writers and arrangers. Their independently produced EP "Onomatopoeia" is considered among the best in contemporary a cappella by TAXI Independent A&R (LA), as well as the Contemporary A Cappella Society of America (CASA), and continues to enjoy national and international airplay. 

And if you don't care so much about music, but are into quality baked goods, be sure to friend/follow her on socials before October when her daily baking and posting for National Cookie Month begins (yes, that's a real thing... yes, she bakes a different cookie every single day & posts sometimes great/sometimes wobbly pix on the interwebs... seriously.)