Some musicians might feel lucky to perform at Carnegie Hall just once, but for 7-year-old violinist and Great Neck resident Kristie Lu, performing on the big stage is nothing new.
Kristie has performed solo at Carnegie Hall five times. In the past year.
“At first I was like ‘oh my god, I’m so nervous,’” she said. “But I love Carnegie Hall. I enjoyed it and I had fun.”
Kristie began playing the piano when she was 4 years old under the direction of her mother, Sherrie Lai, who used to play the piano.
Lai, an orthodontist with a practice in Flushing, said she comes from a family with a background in music.
Her mother is a piano teacher, she said, and her sister a pianist. She said she attended the pre-college program at The Julliard School in New York City.
Lai said she let her daughter pick the instrument she liked best, and she chose the violin at age 6.
“My mom let me pick and I wanted to play violin,” Kristie said.
Lai said her daughter was a natural.
“Somehow with the violin, she picked it up very fast,” she said. “She was just very natural learning the instrument compared to piano.”
Lai said Kristie has strong, thin fingers — a requirement to play the violin well.
Kristie was so good, she said, that Christopher Wilson, the conductor of the Saddle Rock Advanced Orchestra at Saddle Rock Elementary School, asked the second grader to join the orchestra, which is comprised of mostly fourth and fifth-graders.
Recognizing her daughter’s talents and potential, Lai said, she entered her daughter into five international music competitions.
Kristie won four of them, including the American Protege International Competition, Little Mozarts International Competition, Talented Young Musicians Competition and the Rondo Young Artist Competition. She placed second in the fifth contest — the New York International Competition.
Lai said she was hoping her daughter would win at least one competition, but did not imagine she would go on to win four of them.
Although she said Kristie has a lot of natural talent, Lai said, her daughter also puts in a lot of time and effort into playing the violin.
“Discipline and perseverance are the keys,” she said. “There were definitely times that she got frustrated when she couldn’t perfect a difficult passage or a certain technique, but she keeps trying and trying and never gives up until she gets it right.”
Lai said the family is looking at Kristie auditioning for the pre-college program at The Julliard School.
But, she said, when it comes time for her daughter to make a career decision the family will allow her to decide whether she wants to continue music or pursue a different career.
“I want to be an orthodontist or a famous violinist,” Kristie said.
As of right now, Lai said, she is happy with Kristie’s musical progress and her ability to handle both schoolwork and practice the violin.
“I’m glad that she’s at a level where she’s able to play beautiful music that she enjoys and perform for other people, because now she really wants to make her pieces sound nice herself and is very self-motivated when it comes to practicing,” she said.
