— LISTEE'S SPOTLIGHT —

Victoria Griswold is a pianist, teacher, and previously the owner of Plainfield Music Store, a long-running retail hub for sheet music. Her passion for music began at age 7 when she started taking piano lessons. She earned a Master of Music in piano performance at the Manhattan School of Music in 1971 after completing a Bachelor of Arts in sociology at Carleton College. Ms. Griswold has performed internationally in Europe and Brazil, and served as a piano instructor at Rider University’s Westminster Conservatory and a staff accompanist at New Jersey City University. In 1993, she recorded an original piece for piano and orchestra by American composer William Thomas McKinley, beginning a long professional collaboration. Her performances have been critically-acclaimed and even inspired a sonnet from one German critic. Ms. Griswold’s involvement with the Plainfield Music Store began when a group of musicians explored purchasing the store as a collective after the original owner’s passing. As the sale date approached, Ms. Griswold was the group’s only remaining member with interest, and she assumed sole ownership in 1994. Despite an early lack of retail experience and a changing market, she led the store through challenges to remain a community fixture until her retirement in 2018.