SheWho Web Site

Karen Escovitz (aka Otter) is the founder of SheWho and provides direction, musical and otherwise, for the group although not exclusively--she aspires to be a good enough leader to know when to follow. She has been a musician all her live. She has played a variety of instruments including piano, flute, french horn, alto horn, guitar, mandolin, bass, pennywhistles, and percussion--oth these she claims competence only on the last 5 and expertise only on the guitar and percussion. She has sung in choral and other vocal groups since childhood. While in college at Wesleyan University in the mid-1980's she founded and directed an acapella ensemble, QuasiModal, which still exists today. More recently, she participated in the Anna Crusis Women's Choir as a singer, accompanist, Music Committee member, and occasional arranger.

Otter decided to start SheWho out of an interest in a more challenging and intimate singing experience than is possible in a larger choir. She had a dream of creating a group that was about more than singing--but which was also about creating a context in which a group of women could develop skills, find our collective and individual voices, create deep connections with one another, and become the whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Eager to develop further as a songwriter/composer and arranger, she is also interested in using SheWho as a music laboratory for developing more original woman- centered, feminist choral works that could be shared with the woman's choral community. So far, it seems to be working.

When she is not wearing her SheWho hat, Karen Escovitz is a social worker, researcher, and trainer in human services. She has a pretty happy life with her brilliant and dykely partner, Elliott, critters, friends, and a big old house in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia.