Miss Carol Brownstein comes to us with great experience and continues to educate herself on the newest pedagogy (teaching) materials and techniques. She even takes private lessons of her own from time to time! She is a very creative, confident, enthusiastic, and talented instructor.

Carol Brownstein is a classically trained accomplished pianist and piano teacher. She has been playing the piano since she was seven years old.  As a girl, she studied at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago.  As a teenager, she was a semi-finalist in the Chicago Tribune Music Contest and was a winner in the All-City Piano Contest.  Her prize was a performance at the scholarship luncheon for outstanding Chicago high school students hosted by Mayor Daley.  Ms. Brownstein gave her first solo piano recital as a senior in high school and included in the lengthy program was one of the Mendelssohn piano concertos. She attended the University of Illinois as a music major where she received a Stiven music scholarship. Later, she received a degree in piano performance from Cal State University. For many years, she was a student of Leonid Hambro, principal soloist under Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic, straight man for Victor Borge, among other numerous accolades.  More recently, she had the opportunity to meet Dr. Stewart Gordon, well-known teacher at USC, composer, author, and performer.  She has been studying with him for several years now and is working on repertoire for a future recital.

Ms. Brownstein has been teaching piano since she was in high school. She has taught in Chicago, Santa Barbara, Orange  County, Florida, and Israel.  Although she became a school teacher and made that her primary profession for many years, she always was teaching piano part-time .  Since retiring from her school teaching job, she has been teaching piano more full-time.  Her experiences as a high school teacher have helped her with her piano teaching career. In the past few years, she has dedicated herself to improving her piano teaching skills by attending piano pedagogy seminars, such as The National Conference for Keyboard Pedagogy, intensive courses at the Frances Clark Center, and numerous classes and webinars.  She strives to adjust her teaching to fit each individual student.  She has been a member of The Music Teachers Association of California, Music Teachers National Association and The National Guild. She has prepared students for Certificate of Merit and national testing programs. She has worked with students of all ages from five year old children to retired adults and  has experience with all skill levels. She looks forward to teaching for the Music Abode, hoping to instill the love of music in each student who studies with her.