A specialist in contemporary music, she regularly works with the American composer Philip Glass, whose Orphée she conducted in New York and Germany, as well as Glass’ world premiere of Les Enfants Terribles at the Spoleto Festival USA, and most recently Glass’ Satyagraha and the successful new production of Glass’ Akhnaten at the ENO, as well as Glass’ Passages with Anoushka Shankar at the BBC Proms and at the Paris Philharmonie.

In 2019/20 she makes her debut at the Metropolitan Opera with Philip Glass’ Akhnaten and at the Minnesota Opera with Don Giovanni. In the same season, Karen Kamensek is conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Polish Radio Orchestra, and the Hungarian National Orchestra. Other concert engagements take her again to Malmö, Nantes, and to the Tonkünstler Orchestra as part of the Grafenegg Festival, while returning to the Gothenburg Opera House with a production of La Bohème.

In 2018/19, she returned to the Royal Swedish Opera with Dracula, having successfully premiered it there a season earlier, as well as to the ENO with Akhnaten. At the Welsh National Opera, she conducted Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, and at the Bergen National Opera, Bernstein’s Candide.

Concert invitations have taken Karen Kamensek to Oslo Philharmonic, Stockholm Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Tonkünstler Orchestra, Dortmunder Philharmoniker, Orchestre National Bordeaux, Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, Bruckner Orchestra Linz, Duisburg Philharmonic, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Monterey Symphony, Odense Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Orchestre National de Montpellier, MDR Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra Leipzig, ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, Hamburg Philharmonic, Philharmonic Orchestra Freiburg, Philharmonic State Orchestra Brunswick, Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Halle, San Antonio Symphony, Symphony Orchestra Basel, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra Ljubljana, and Symphony Silicon Valley.

Also in demand as an opera conductor, Kamensek has guest-conducted at many important opera houses around the world, including such auspices as the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Frankfurt Opera, Gothenburg Opera, Israeli Opera, New York City Opera, Opera Australia, Royal Danish Opera, San Diego Opera, San Francisco Opera, and the Vienna Volksoper. Particular highlights of her operatic career include such productions as Britten’s Death in Venice, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, Floyd’s Susannah, Lehár’s The Merry Widow, Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci, Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, Mussorgsky’s Boris Gudonov, Puccini’s Tosca, Verdi’s Otello, and Wagner’s Lohengrin.

Kamensek was First Kapellmeister at the Vienna Volksoper from 2000 to 2002, and Generalmusikdirector at the Theater Freiburg from 2003 to 2006, after which she took on the position of interim Chief Conductor of the Slovenian National Theater in Maribor in the 2007/08 season. Beginning in 2008, Kamensek served as deputy Generalmusikdirector at the Hamburg State Opera before becoming Generalmusikdirektor and Chief Conductor of the Hanover State Opera in 2011. She led the opera in Hanover until 2016, and during her tenure she conducted numerous new productions including Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Puccini’s Il trittico, Detlev Glanert’s Caligula, and Janacek’s Jenufa.