Cabaret Performer Says She Was Born to Sing

Christine Remiker Volpe can remember when she couldn’t get a second grader named Karen Gross to sit down.

“She didn’t stop moving,” the Gayman Elementary School music teacher said of her student. “She was already quite talented and outgoing.”

Volpe’s opinion of Gross – now a 32-year-old cabaret singer, songwriter and comedienne – hasn’t changed. “I just love her,” Volpe said. “She’s funny and entertaining and beautiful.”

Volpe and her husband, Dave, have seen Gross perform in Philadelphia, New Hope and New York, where Gross dedicated a song to her former teacher, causing her to start “bawling my head off.”

They plan to see her when she performs in a sold-out show March 31 at Highland Farm in Doylestown, the former home of Broadway lyricist and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II.

Gross, a 1997 graduate of in Buckingham, also will be performing on April 14 in Avalon, New Jersey. She is scheduled to sing on May 11 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

“Ever since I was really little, I’ve been singing, said the former Plumstead Township resident who now lives in center city Philadelphia. “It’s something that’s in your blood.”

Gross’s performances, which she calls “classy and sassy,” vary depending on her audience and the venue. Some include comedy and some – like the Highland Farm and art museum performances – don’t.

“I’m pretty versatile,” she said, adding she sings anything from jazz standards to contemporary songs.

Gross said she enjoys cabaret performances because they are small and intimate, allowing audiences and performers to form a connection.

“It’s a very theatrical medium. It can make you laugh and cry. It’s something that’s going to move you in some way,” she said. “I think that’s what I really love about it. You’re able to interact with the audience.”

Gross sang in the choir both at East and at , and she performed in musicals at East, along with classmate Justin Guarini, first runner-up on the premier season of American Idol. “It’s where I found my niche,” she said.

“She was always performing. She always wanted to sing. She was always writing songs,” CB East Choir Director Scott Teschner said of the girl he and Volpe both described as an outgoing, free spirit. He said she also played piano for the choir and was instrumental in starting Java Jams, a coffee-house-style performance event that is still held two to three times a year.

Teschner said Gross and Guarini were voted by their classmates as most likely to win a Grammy award.

More recently, Teschner brought Gross back to school to sing and talk to choir students from around the region while they were participating in a district chorus event at East. “She’s very approachable. She’s very interested in helping other people,” he said.

“I feel like her personality and her love of people shines through her eyes and her face,” Volpe said. “She’s such a genuine person. Nothing’s fake.”

Gross and Volpe reconnected more than a decade ago after Volpe won an award and Gross and another former student paid her a surprise visit. “It’s just so wonderful to be back in touch with her now,” Volpe said. “I’m sure we’ll be in touch forever.”

Although Gross has always been musical, it wasn’t until she completed her senior project in college, “Conquistadoras,” a performance piece about women traveling the world alone, that Gross began thinking about creating performances based on real-life experiences.

“I learned I could write comedy from that,” she said. “It planted the seed of pleasure at making people laugh.”

After graduating from Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Gross returned to Bucks County and entered the singer-songwriter arena, putting comedy on hold for a while. She performed at Odette’s and John and Peter’s in New Hope, as well as in Philadelphia, singing folk songs and her own material.

“Then, I kind of hit the wall,” she said.

Soon after moving into an apartment in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia in late 2005, Gross discovered she had what she needed to create her own show.

“I realized I had all this material about living alone as a single woman among a lot of families,” she said. Her show, “Sex and the Single Singer,” was born. The show was a combination of singing and comedy.

“People really responded,” she said. “This was a direction that fit me best.”

No longer single – Gross has a boyfriend – she has a new show based on being in a relationship. Her boyfriend, a musician whose name she did not want to divulge, sometimes takes part in her show.

Gross also performs for nonprofits she believes in and at bachelorette parties, which can be customized, based on the dating experiences of the bride-to-be. “I love doing shows for just women. They start singing, letting their hair down,” she said.

Gross also has been producing and hosting cabaret shows that feature other performers in Philadelphia. The most recent one featured two burlesque stars and a comedian. “I had always wanted to do a sort of late night cabaret,” she said. “The idea is to share our audiences.”

Gross has released an album of original music and a sampler CD from her cabaret repertoire; some of her recordings can be found on iTunes. Some of her music also is available for free on her Web site, www.karengross.com.

Teschner called Gross’ music "very easy to listen to."

“She really sings from her heart,” he said. “People can relate to her music.”

Gross' upcoming performance on March 31 at Oscar Hammerstein's Highland Farm in Doylestown is sold out. For reservations or information about the upcoming “Girlfriends Getaway” weekends at the Golden Inn in Avalon, New Jersey, where Gross will be performing, visit www.goldeninn.com or call 866-343-6111.