Karen Bohart feels at home when she is conducting a choir.
“I remember doing my very first concert,” said Bohart, the choir director at Wilsonville High School. “I don’t know how to explain this and I don’t know if anybody understands, but when I was doing the concert, I was directing the kids and they were making music from what I was expressing with my hands and the work we’d done in the classroom. There was a sense of peace and I felt like I was at home. This is what I was meant to do in my life.”
Bohart has followed that sense of home for more than 20 years as a choral director and music teacher in Oregon. Last fall, Bohart became the new choir director at Wilsonville High School, where she leads the Chamber Choir, Symphonic Choir and Soul’d Out.
Recently, Bohart was named the Outstanding Music Educator of the Year by the National Federation of State High School Associations for the Pacific Northwest section.
“I just really enjoy students. I enjoy listening to, you know, their drama, to their lives,” Bohart said, laughing. “I like being somebody that can influence or inspire or advise. I enjoy spending time with them, I think that’s key to being a good teacher and music teacher. It is about the music and teaching musicianship, but it’s also about … choir makes good people. I’ve really enjoyed teaching them how to be good humans along the way.”