About the Mid-Peninsula Recorder Orchestra

Picture of MPRO Spring Concert 2017

Our Mission

The Mid-Peninsula Recorder Orchestra was founded on the premise that joining with others to make music is a pleasurable and personally rewarding experience. Because of its relatively large size, the enthusiasm of its membership and its diverse activities, the MPRO has something to offer those who play early instruments at any level. An American Recorder Society Consort, it is responsive to the needs of its members, and, with their input, creates programs and sets musical priorities tailored to their requirements. Membership is open without audition to anyone who knows the basics of an early instrument and can read and play the music provided at meetings.

Our History

The Mid-Peninsula recorder Orchestra was formed in 1962 and has had a long and successful history of service to its members and the community. It presents two concerts annually and performs regularly at various schools and community centers. It has also appeared on public television stations KQED and KCSM, at the Berkeley Early Music Festival, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, Mission San Jose, the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek and California State University, East Bay. The MPRO has given joint performances with the Palo Alto Madrigal Singers, the Congregational Oratorio Society, the Young Performers String Orchestra, the Oriana Consort, the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, and the California State University, East Bay Singers. Guest soloists have included Susan Witt of the San Francisco Opera Chorus, and Harp soloist Janice Ortega. Directors of MPRO workshops have included LaNoue Davenport, Hans Ulrich Staeps, Friedrich von Huene, John Tyson, Peter Seibert, and Martha Bixler as well as many of the well-known recorder teachers and performers who make the San Francisco Bay Area their home.

Click here to see a more detailed history of the MPRO.

The MPRO supports the creation of new music for the recorder and has given premieres of works by several Bay Area composers. The MPRO is an affiliate of the San Francisco Early Music Society and donations made to the MPRO through SFEMS are tax deductible.

Our Director, Fred Palmer

The Mid-Peninsula Recorder Orchestra has been under the talented direction of Mr. Frederic Palmer since 1989.

Frederic Palmer has an M.A. in Early Music from Stanford University and has studied with Bernard Krainis, George Houle, and Michel Piguet. He has directed recorder workshops throughout the United States and was on the staff of the Department of Music at California State University, East Bay from 1971 until his retirement in 2008. In addition to performing both early and contemporary music, he is a published editor, arranger and composer, has had his reviews, articles, and interviews appear in U.S., Canadian and British journals and was awarded first prize in the American Recorder Society's Erich Katz Memorial Fund Composition Contest for an original composition for recorder ensemble.