From the very first art songs of Haydn and Mozart all the way to the contemporary Lied, Karola Pavone has developed a widely varied repertoire along with her frequent collaborators at the piano, Ainoa Padrón Ortiz (Spain) and Boris Radulovic (Serbia). The singer’s passion for the Kunstlied extends from before she began her formal studies, when she was preparing her first Liederabend programs with Austrian pianist Brigitta Neidl. In 2003, Karola Pavone was winner of the "Jugend musiziert" contest in the Kunstlied category. Her affinity and interest for this particular form of chamber music led her to continue her studies with KS Edith Mathis, Irwin Gage, Rudolf Jansen, and finally KS Olaf Bär and KS Robert Holl, with whose guidance she devoted herself to the Lieder of Franz Schubert.
She has won or been among the finalists of several international Lieder contests, including Das Lied in Berlin and the International Brahms Contest in Pörtschach (with Ainoa Padrón). In 2015, along with Boris Radulovic, she won the International Lied Duet Contest Rhine-Ruhr, whose jury was headed by Norman Shetler. In the same year she and Ainoa Padrón took home 2nd Prize and the Special Award for the Interpretation of Contemporary Lieder at the Cantando-Parlando Lieder Contest.
At the 2014 Festival Vocallis in Vaals, Netherlands, Pavone and her frequent collaborator, Pianist Ainoa Padrón were awarded the Lied Prize. They performed in a Liederabend there again in 2015. Also in the 2015/16 season, Pavone and pianist Boris Radulovic gave a Liederabend at the prestigious Lieder series “Im Zentrum Lied” in Cologne. In May 2017 they performed in a concert for the "Rising Stars"-Program of "International Lied Festival" in Zeist, Netherlands, where they returned in 2021 and 2022 as prize holders "Ambassador for Lied". In future, they will perform recitals in Köln and in the prestigious Oxford Lieder Festival.
Along with the well-loved German Lieder repertoire, in which Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Hugo Wolf, and of course Franz Schubert enjoy pride of place, Karola Pavone is passionately interested in the 20th-century works of underrepresented art song composers such as August Bungert, Ottorino Respighi, Reynaldo Hahn, and many others. She and Boris Radulovic will soon record the songs by the forgitten french composer Rita Strohl, after having dedicated their first album ("Le Chevalier Malheur", Coviello Classics 2020) to the poetry of Paul Verlaine in songs by Debussy, Hahn, Fauré, Chausson, Varése and others.