Kara DioGuardi
Kara Elizabeth DioGuardi (/ˈkærə diːoʊˈɡwɑːrdi/; born December 9, 1970) is an American songwriter, record producer, music publisher, A&R executive, and singer. She primarily writes music in the pop rock genre.[2] She has worked with many popular artists;[3] sales of albums on which her songs appear exceed 160 million worldwide.[4] DioGuardi is a 2011 NAMM Music for Life Award winner, 2009 NMPA Songwriter Icon Award winner, 2007 BMI Pop Songwriter of the Year, and has received 20 BMI Awards for co-writing songs.
Kara DioGuardi
Kara Elizabeth DioGuardi
December 9, 1970
Ossining, New York, U.S.[1]
- Record executive
- songwriter
- record producer
- music publisher
- singer
- television personality
1990–present
DioGuardi was a judge on American Idol for its eighth and ninth seasons. In 2008, she was appointed to the position of executive vice president of talent development at Warner Bros. Records; she has signed acts such as Jason Derulo and Iyaz. In 2011, she was a head judge on the Bravo singer-songwriter competition series Platinum Hit.
Early life[edit]
DioGuardi was born in Ossining, New York.[1] Her family has origins in the Arbëreshë (Albanian) minority from Italy.[5][6] Her father is former Republican Congressman and 2010 US Senate candidate Joe DioGuardi.[1] Her mother Carol died in 1997 after a seven-year battle with ovarian cancer.[7]
DioGuardi grew up in the Wilmot Woods section of suburban New Rochelle, New York[8] and attended elementary school at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic School in Scarsdale, New York. She graduated from The Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, New York and earned a degree in political science at Duke University.[1] After graduating from college, she worked for Billboard magazine as an assistant to Timothy White and Howard Lander; later she was an advertising sales representative there.
Personal life[edit]
DioGuardi splits her time between Los Angeles and York Harbor, Maine.[26] She began dating teacher-turned-general contractor Mike McCuddy in 2007[27] after the two met while he was working on a home adjacent to her property in Maine.[28] After a year and a half of dating, DioGuardi and McCuddy got engaged in December 2008[29] and married on July 5, 2009, in Prospect Harbor, Maine.[30] McCuddy has a teenage daughter from a previous relationship.[31] Together, DioGuardi and McCuddy have one son, born via gestational carrier on January 31, 2013.[32] The couple made the decision to use a surrogate after years of infertility and unsuccessful in vitro fertilization attempts.[33]
DioGuardi works with the Phoenix House, a non-profit substance abuse service organization; she contributes to recording studios in the facilities and helps teach the teens how to operate the equipment.[24] In February 2010, she joined former American Idol contestant Elliott Yamin in a charity trip sponsored by ExxonMobil to Angola where they visited malaria prevention and treatment projects as part of Idol Gives Back.
In May 2010, she posed nude for the annual "Naked Truth" issue of Allure magazine.[34]
