New Scholarship for Cabaret Singers at C.W. Post
Endowment will aid music and theater majors who aspire to careers in cabaret 

Brookville, N.Y. – A unique new scholarship at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University will assist music and theater majors who aspire to a career in one of music’s most distinctive genres: cabaret.

Cabaret singer Karen Kohler and her husband, C.W. Post alumnus Peter Kohler, have endowed a new scholarship for music majors who aspire to a career in cabaret.

Made possible by a gift from celebrated New York cabaret singer Karen Kohler and her husband, C.W. Post alumnus Robert Kohler, the scholarship will be awarded to a junior, senior or graduate student in the C.W. Post School of Visual and Performing Arts with talent, interest and affinity for the art and history of musical cabaret performance.

The scholarship will be formally announced at a reception on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 in the Hillwood Art Museum at C.W. Post.

Cabaret is characterized by performances that mix songs, drama, comedy, and dance in small, intimate venues. “You are right there with your audience,” Ms. Kohler says. “For us there is no ‘fourth wall’ as there is in traditional theater.”

The C.W. Post Campus hosts the Cabaret at Club T series at the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, and is the only college or university in the New York metropolitan area committed to professional cabaret performance. “As far we know, this is the first scholarship of its kind, and the existing commitment to cabaret at Post would be a natural fit completely apart from our own history with the school” the Kohlers said.

The Kohlers met while both were students on a tour of Europe with the C.W. Post choirs. “The rest of the choir had a betting pool on when we would have our first kiss. It was while lost in Venice in the rain,” recalled Mr. Kohler, who graduated with a degree in political science in 1985. Ms. Kohler later transferred to the University of Arizona, where she earned a degree in international relations.

Ms. Kohler, who was born in Frankfurt, Germany, was introduced to cabaret music when her husband’s late father, Peter E. Kohler, asked her to translate a Marlene Dietrich album from German to English so he could understand the lyrics. The formal announcement of the scholarship is scheduled to coincide with what would have been Peter Kohler’s 75th birthday. The scholarship is to be named The Peter E. Kohler Scholarship in Cabaret Performance.

The scholarship will award 5 percent of the total endowment and as the total endowment grows through investment and gifts, awards to recipients will increase.

To qualify for the scholarship, a student will demonstrate financial need, have a grade point average of 3.0 or better and be enrolled as a student in either the Department of Music or the Department of Theatre at the School of Visual and Performing Arts. The scholarship recipient will produce a full cabaret program as their senior recital or produce an original thesis or composition in the form.

The Kohlers live and work in New York City where Ms. Kohler performs the European songbook when not touring the US and Europe. Together they produce Kabarett Fete, New York’s festival of European cabaret through their production company, Fin Alley Arts, and direct the Kabarett Kollektif, a performance troupe of European musicians based in New York.

For background on the scholarship and European cabaret in New York City, visit www.karenkohler.com or write info@finalleyarts.com. For more information on the C.W. Post School of Visual and Performing Arts, visit www.liu.edu/svpa.

Posted: August 28, 2007