One of the few women active in high levels of opera conducting internationally, conductor Karen Kamensek has worked mostly in continental Europe. Cellist Janos Starker recommended her as a conductor's assistant to Dennis Russell Davies. Thus began an association between Kamensek and Davies' friend, composer Philip Glass. From 2003 to 2006, she was the general music director of the Theater Freiburg in Germany, becoming the first woman to hold the post. In 2016, she made her debut at the English National Opera in a production of Glass' Akhnaten. The following year, she led the first full production of the Glass/Ravi Shankar collaboration Passages. In 2019, Kamensek made her Metropolitan Opera debut, leading Akhnaten in a production broadcast to cinemas. Kamensek has been heard on several recordings of Glass' music, including a 2005 reading of Les Enfants Terribles. Her Metropolitan Opera Akhnaten was released in 2021.
