From the KDFC Headline Archive
http://www.kdfc.com/classical/musicNews/headlines_detail.cfm?id=299
February 21, 2001
The classical music world’s unwritten laws tell us that a New York
City recital debut – in Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, or Alice Tully Hall
– is an essential rite of passage for any aspiring soloist. To be
“taken seriously”, as it were, by chamber music series, artist
management agencies, and symphony orchestras seeking
concerto soloists, such a debut must be on the resume – and
Carnegie Hall, the sentimental favorite, is preferable.
Bay Area flute soloist Dr. Kris Palmer has successfully won a
Carnegie Hall debut, which she will give on April 29 of this year.
She was an award winner in the Artists International auditions, and
the organization will sponsor her April recital – the latest honor in
an already noteworthy career.
Palmer has lived in the Bay Area only a few years, having grown up
nearby in the Central Valley town of Lodi. She and her sister both
played the flute growing up and made the journey to Oakland’s
House of Woodwinds regularly for flute purchases and repairs.
She recalls that when she was about six or seven, her mother took
the family to see a performance of the San Francisco Ballet’s
Nutcracker. They had balcony seats, and “since I was then and
continue to be deathly afraid of heights, I spent most of the
performance crouched on the floor, too frightened to look up, let
alone down at the [dancers].” The memory is still a positive one,
since it was her first experience with the music of Tchaikovsky.
“For as many times since then that I have sat in the orchestra pit
playing the Nutcracker score, I have never forgotten the magic that I
heard that day,” she says. “I believe that it was probably this
experience that led both my older sister and me to gravitate
towards music.” Flute enthusiasts may hear Dr. Kris Palmer in her
recital this Saturday, February 24 at 8:00 p.m., at San Francisco’s
Community School of Music, 544 Capp Street. For more
information, call 415-647-6015.