About DianaAbout Diana

Diana has been working with independent musicians and songwriting instructors for the past 7 years doing publicity, creating press materials, building websites and managing web presence. In 2008, with Terri Mazurek of Peppermint Booking, Diana founded Musician's Mom, a service dedicated to offering independent musicians practical support and advice.  Diana offers similar web presence and publicity support to other small businesses through Skynote Consulting. She is also the Member Services Director for a newly-launched video-based songwriting instruction service, Songwork.com and teaches her website workshop at the Rocky Mountain Song School.

Working with nationally recognized songwriters like Ellis, Steve Seskin and Pat Pattison, Diana, who's been singing and playing the piano since childhood, has been inspired to start writing her own songs. Her music is melodic, whimsical and touching -- highlighted by her sweet harmonies that have been honed through years of experience performing with various vocal groups.  Diana is currently writing songs and working on her first CD.  You can listen to some of the "songs-in-progress" here.

Diana is also the owner of a handmade jewelry business, Halcyon Designs, and lives with her husband and their two teenaged kids, in Minneapolis, MN. Apparently, a mom's work is never done.

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Two upcoming shows - December 9th & 10th
Dec 9, 2011

Tomorrow - Friday, December 9
Music from Africa - A Benefit
Pilgrim Lutheran Church - 1935 St. Clair Ave., St. Paul, MN
7 pm

I'll be singing with the Earthtones during this free-will donation concert to benefit the Tanzanian Water Development Partners sponsored by St. Paul Partners non-profit. 100% of the proceeds will go to these groups for training Tanzanians in the technology and business of building wells for wholesome water across the country.

 We will present songs from across the African continent sung in African languages and English.

 A reception of light refreshments will follow the show.


Saturday, Dec 10
19th Annual Women's Art Festival
Midtown YWCA - 2121 E Lake St
Minneapolis, MN

10:45 - 11:15 am - I will be joined by Pam Guthrie and Peggy Larson from the Earthtones for the first half of my set.  Come hear new music (and a few oldies) by Diana, as well as few new songs from Pam.
 
12:00 - 12:30 pm - I will join the Earthtones for a reprise of our African music set (a bit shorter than Friday night's program).


The Art Festival features the high-quality & beautiful wares of 100+ local women artists working in a large variety of media, live music by women performers throughout the day, as well as food, beverages and treats provided by a women-owned coffee shop! 



Hope to see you there!

Little Tree recording...finally
Sep 8, 2011

In case you've been wondering all these months...I finally recorded Little Tree (another song based on an e. e. cummings poem).  It's only been a year or so since I wrote it... ;^)  You can listen to it here (Songs from 2006- 2011) or on my brand new SoundCloud page!

New recording...soon: Plus, another fearless week coming up!
Sep 4, 2011

Coming soon... our excellent iPhone recording of the 20-minute-last-day-of-Folks-Festival "Pumpkin Hour" co-written with the lovely Cheryl Branz and Jenna Lindbo.  :)  (Thanks, ladies, that was sooo much fun!)

Thanks, once again to Timmae! (yes, you're supposed to sort of shout that in your head when you read it), I will be embarking on yet another Fearless Songwriting week starting September 18th.  What can you expect?  More e.e. cummings-inspired songs, some of which may end up on the new album, and probably a few "oh-crap-I-was-supposed-to-write-a-song-today" last-minute ditties.  Really, the world can never have enough ditties, right?  Stay tuned.

Giddiness...an English major's story of e. e. cummings and the ukelele
Mar 24, 2011

So as it turns out, I am love-love-loving this week's song-a-day project.  Long ago, in a college not very far away, I got my bachelor's degree in English Literature.  It's not something I think about every day.  My life as a mom and business owner don't often lead me to poetry.  But this week -- hoo boy, what a week!  Knowing that it was a busy week, but that I still wanted to play along with Timmy Riordan's Fearless Songwriting week, I decided that I'd do so by basing each day's song on a poem by my favorite poet, e. e. cummings.

Cummings, an officianado of irregular rhyme scheme and meter (and punctuation, for that matter), has the juiciest, most dyamic use of language.  I mean, words like "perhapsless" and "hypermagical ultraomnipotence" and phrases like "foreverfully falling snow" and "smoking sawdust cigarettes in the middle of the night" are just so, well, yummy!

When I add my new ukelele into the mix (just learning how to play it - which will be obvious if you listen to any of the songs!), I find that I have created the most deliciously fun exercise; one which combines my love of genius poetry, songwriting and learning a new instrument.  I just posted yesterday's song and am off to write today's.  I thought this would just be a week-long exercise, a fun new way to get into songwriting.  But the more I do this, the more I think I've found my new way of life... ;^)

 

Fearless Songwriting March 2011
Mar 23, 2011

Back at it this week.... you can check out the songs, hot off the presses, here.  This time around, I'm doing an exercise in thievery -- my songs are based on e e cummings poems.  I'm trying to keep them intact (because I really love his work), but because he wasn't overly concerned with regular meter and rhyme, I've taken some liberties at times. :)