Alexander Kouguell Oral History
Scope and Contents
In the interview, Kouguell talks about joining the music department at Queens College in 1949 as an instructor and as the first cellist at the department. He notes his appreciation for the musical talents and achievements of his parents and reminisces about how different and suburban Flushing was at the time when he was starting at Queens College.
Dates
- 2018-05-20
Creator
- Kouguell, Alexander (Interviewee, Person)
Access
This oral history is open for research. Media files and transcript can be viewed and/or requested through the Queens Memory Project on Aviary: https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/4734/file/35625. For help using the site, contact QC.Archives@qc.cuny.edu.
Conditions Governing Use
Interview shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Users are free to share or adapt the material for non-commercial purposes, as long as they meet the terms of the license. See license details at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.
Biographical / Historical
Alexander Kouguell was born in Russia, lived and studied in Beirut and Paris, and moved to New York in 1946. An accomplished cellist, he joined the music department at Queens College in 1949 as an instructor, taught there until 1990 when he retired, then returned until 2017 as an adjunct. He speaks English, Russian, French, and Arabic, and has travelled the world to perform. He holds the position of Professor Emeritus at Queens College and celebrated his 100th birthday on March 27, 2020 on a Zoom birthday party organized by friends, family, colleagues, and students during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Queens College has an informative profile about Kouguell’s life and achievements entitled Alexander Kouguell: Celebrating a “Long and Interesting Life” as a Cellist and Teacher.
And Prof. Edward Smaldone, a colleague at the music department, posted a video of the Zoom party when Kouguell celebrated his 100th birthday. A short clip is available here and the hour-long party is available here.
Extent
1 Digital Files ; Duration: 01:06:34
Language of Materials
English
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated to Queens College and Queens Public Library by Alexander Kouguell and Stefani Priskos in May, 2018.
Processing Information
Oral history conducted as part of the Queens Memory Project (http://queensmemory.org), a collaborative program of the Queens Public Library and Queens College to collect stories, images, and other evidence of life in the borough of Queens.
Creator
- Kouguell, Alexander (Interviewee, Person)
- Priskos, Stefani (Interviewer, Person)
- Title
- Alexander Kouguell Oral History
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Patricia Reguyal
- Date
- May 2020
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
Repository Details
Part of the Queens College (New York, N.Y.) Special Collections and Archives Repository
Queens College Library, CUNY
Benjamin Rosenthal Library RO317
65-30 Kissena Boulevard
Flushing 11367 USA us
QC.Archives@qc.cuny.edu