Carol Montparker Oral History

Carol Montparker is a professional concert pianist who attended Queens College beginning in 1956. Montparker speaks with interviewer Myra Campolo about her childhood in Brooklyn and Queens and her time as a music major at Queens College; they also discuss her ensuing career as a pianist, music journalist, and author. Montparker was approximately 10 when she moved to Forest Hills and met Leopold Mittman, a pianist and Forest Hills resident who she says was a wonderful piano teacher and had a profound effect on her. Montparker discusses her decision to attend Queens College instead of Barnard College, the music and non-music courses she took, and her performances with the Queens College Orchestral Society and Choral Society. Additionally, Montparker speaks about her experience trying to balance her concert schedule and raising children when she was a young mother, her decades-long and ongoing work as a piano teacher, the present-day struggles that young musicians face, and her thoughts about continuing to play piano and give performances at a late stage in her life.