Musician Karen LeFrak is reflecting on finding fame later in life and the moment David Foster recognized her musical talent.
During a recent interview with Fox News Digital, the 79-year-old composer detailed how it felt writing her latest album, “American Promise,” commissioned for America’s 250th anniversary.
LeFrak’s story is unique in the sense she found fame in her 70s, when Foster visited her house for a photo shoot, and she showed him an original piece she had written and asked him for his opinion.
“He looked at me, and he said, ‘Do you have any more?’ And I proceeded to take out many,” she recalled. “And he looked at me, and he said, ‘Oh my God, you can write a melody. Nobody, nobody writes melodies anymore. They’re all experimenting. You can really write a melody, and I want everyone to hear them.'”
The composer explained she “was a little nervous” when showing him her work “because I wanted him to like them so much.” And after he played a difficult piece of hers on the piano, she waited, “my hands on my cheeks,” for his reaction, adding, “When he said you have anymore, I got an inkling that he liked them.”
“He looked at his manager who was there at the time, and he said, ‘It’s a personal favor, get her music out,'” she said. “And, so, the manager put together a whole team for me. They got it, just Naxos, the distributor. They got eight VA people to do social media. And the next thing I know, I was launching my first album in 2021, and, as of today, 2026, I have 60 million streams.”
WATCH HERE: KAREN LEFRAK FOUND FAME AFTER SHOWING DAVID FOSTER HER COMPOSITIONS
Foster is not the first person to ask LeFrak to provide them with pieces, and the composer told Fox News Digital she wrote for ballet and for chamber groups, adding, “Friends would ask me, and I would just give them, just give them the music.”
Although it was clear she was talented, she said, “it never occurred to me that I was really going to have a professional career.”
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“Nobody ever discussed it with me,” she said. “I never thought of it. I never really thought of having a music career. It evolved. It wasn’t as though, when I was a child and musical, I said, ‘Oh, I want to have a professional career in music.’ I didn’t do that. It was really from people who asked me for pieces, even before David.”
LeFrak’s latest success is her album “American Promise,” which features three new songs: “American Promise,” “Lady Liberty Suite” and “Prairie Dawn.”
WATCH HERE: KAREN LEFRAK NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT HAVING A PROFESSIONAL MUSIC CAREER BEFORE GETTING DISCOVERED IN HER 70S
She explained that while she was honored to be asked to compose a piece, she didn’t believe it at first, later asking if the offer was serious and being told, “Yeah, I am serious. And where’s the piece?” She then went through all her work and “found a fanfare motif that I absolutely loved,” which later “became the genesis of the freedom fanfare.”
WATCH HERE: KAREN LEFRAK PREPARED FIVE NEW COMPOSITIONS FOR AMERICA’S 250TH ANNIVERSARY
To truly embody the “gratitude” she feels for this country, she added a slow section, which she described as “really beautiful.” The song then “goes back to the fanfare motif” but with the added feature of “a narration of the most important words of the Declaration of Independence.”
“And when I finished the piece, my arranger said, ‘Oh my God, this is too good. You have to record it,'” she said of “American Promise.” “So, where did we record it? We went to the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road. Who would have thought that I would be crossing the crosswalk going to Abbey Road to have this piece?”
WATCH HERE: KAREN LEFRAK CONSIDERS MUSIC AS ‘A GREAT UNIFIER’
She hopes that when people listen to “American Promise,” what they take away from it the most is “appreciation,” adding she hopes people can stand back and say, “Look what this country has done for me.”
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“No. 1, music is a great unifier, and enjoying the piece, No. 1, being moved by it is paramount,” she said. “It has nothing to do with politics. It has nothing to with likes, hates, anything, it’s just appreciation. So, in addition to the freedom and liberty, I want people to appreciate and know that music is the great unifier.”
The New York Philharmonic played the piece July 3 at David Geffen Hall.
