Carol Montparker Papers

Carol Montparker (born 1939) is a distinguished concert pianist, writer, teacher, watercolorist, and alumna of Queens College, where she majored in music. While at QC, she was awarded the prestigious Orchestral Society Award, granted to the “most outstanding instrumentalist on campus.” A student of Leopold Mittman, Montparker went on to study with Josef Fidelman and Angela Weschler at the New York College of Music, and was also coached by renowned pianists Jerome Lowenthal, Claude Frank, Horacio Gutierrez, André Watts, and Peter Frankl.

In addition to her performance career, Montparker has been deeply involved in music journalism and education. She served as senior editor of Clavier magazine for 17 years, during which time she interviewed such world-famous pianists as Alfred Brendel, Radu Lupu, and Alicia de Larrocha. She won four Awards for Excellence in Journalism from Educational Press of America and published freelance articles in virtually every music periodical, as well as The New York Times and Newsday.

In 1998, Montparker was invited by Steinway and Sons to join the prestigious roster of official Steinway Artists. A major highlight of her collaboration with Steinway was her lecture-performance series in which each event explored the unique “landscape”—a metaphor for the score and stylistic identity—of a single composer. The result was the book The Composer’s Landscape: The Pianist as Explorer, Interpreting the Scores of Eight Masters. This work, and her books Anatomy of a New York Debut Recital: A Chronicle, A Pianist’s Landscape, and The Blue Piano and Other Stories, are available at the Queens College Music Library.

Montparker's artistic talents extend beyond music and writing—she is also an accomplished watercolorist. Her visual art often intersects with her musical life; her paintings have appeared as cover art and illustrations in music publications and in her own books, including Polly and the Piano, The Blue Piano and Other Stories, and A Pianist’s Journal in Venice.