Karen Ball, Professor of Music at Olivet Nazarene University holds a Bachelor of Music degree in composition and theory from Temple University where she graduated Suma Cum Laude.  She was the recipient of the Nancy Campbell Award for top honors in music theory.  Dr. Ball also received a Master of Music degree in piano performance and pedagogy from Northern Illinois University under the tutelage of William Goldenberg, and a Doctor of Music Arts degree in piano performance and repertoire from the University of Illinois under the tutelage of Kenneth Drake.

 As composer-arranger and recitalist, she frequently performs on the concert stage and in churches across the country. Her music carried her to Africa in 1991 where she performed in concert in Swaziland and South Africa and recorded original piano music for Trans World Radio broadcasts aired throughout the continent.  Her current CD and book of piano arrangements are published by Lillenas Publishing.  Dr. Ball was the 2009 winner of the American Choral Directors Association Composition Contest with her choral work A light exists in spring. 

Dr. Ball has enjoyed an extensive teaching career specializing in the areas of piano performance, piano repertoire, piano pedagogy, improvisation and composition. She instigated and formulated the curriculum for the Music Composition Major at Olivet Nazarene University implemented in 2004.  She is a member of the Illinois State Music Teachers Association, the American College of Musicians, and the Society of Composers, Inc.  She has served as adjudicator and clinician for various music institutions and organizations such as the Mendelssohn Club, the National Piano Guild and the Illinois State Music Teachers Assoc.  Dr. Ball is mother of three, grandmother of three, and lives with her husband Stephen and Jack Russell Terrier Shelby (Jack Rascal Terrorist) in Bourbonnais, Illinois.