Karl -Fritz- Kraber

Karl "Fritz" Kraber

2020 Lifetime Achievement Award

Karl “Fritz” Kraber has performed as a soloist, orchestral musician, and chamber musician across the span of his six-decade-long professional career. Most notably he served as the flutist in the Dorian Wind Quintet for 19 seasons, which included 900-plus concerts and 12 recordings. In addition, he has contributed to flute literature with his many arrangements of important works.

At the New York High School of Music and Art, he studied flute with Jimmy Politis, Associate Principal of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He then attended Harvard University, which did not have a formal music program, so he took additional courses at the Longy School of Music, studying flute with James Pappoutsakis of the Boston Symphony. After graduating from Harvard, Kraber was awarded a Fulbright to study in Rome with Severino Gazzeloni. During this time in Europe, which was extended when his Fulbright was renewed, Kraber became inspired to pursue a career in music. He began performing with Italian orchestras and formed a touring chamber ensemble. He also enrolled in Jean-Pierre Rampal’s summer classes in Nice. But when the economy in Italy began to falter, he decided to return home.

Upon his return, Kraber became a creative associate with the Center for the Creative and Performing Arts through SUNY–Buffalo, which helped reintroduce him to New York’s music scene. He returned to Rampal’s courses during the summers, and it was there in 1965 that he learned the flute position in the Dorian Wind Quintet was open.

Kraber won the job, and over the next year helped the ensemble build its performing and recording opportunities to become a full-time ensemble. The quintet toured internationally, including South Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East. While in New York, Kraber also performed with the Aeolian Chamber Players and New York Chamber Soloists, and during the summers he attended Marcel Moyse’s summer classes in Vermont.

In 1983, he was hired by the University of Texas at Austin, where he taught until his retirement in 2004. He continued to perform with Dorian for a few years, but soon realized that they needed someone full-time. To fill the chamber-music-sized gap in his life, he and his violist wife, Joan, created the Chamber Soloists of Austin, the first mixed-instrument chamber group in Austin. Through his passionate teaching, he cultivated a strong flute studio, many of whom have gone on to professional careers in the flute world.

Read Karl "Fritz" Kraber's The Flutist Quarterly tribute here.