New York City-based cellist Diana Golden serves as Principal Cellist of Parlando and Assistant Principal Cellist of New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players, and enjoys regular engagements with American Ballet Theatre, American Symphony Orchestra, Distinguished Concerts International New York, and Bronx Arts Ensemble. Other recent performance highlights include concerts with the Albany and Richmond Symphonies and Argento New Music Project. Golden has performed in prestigious venues throughout the United States and the United Kingdom, such as Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, National Sawdust, the Colburn School of Music, Spectrum NYC, San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall, the United Nations, Montreal’s Conservatoire de musique et d’art dramatique du Québec, and St. David’s Hall in Cardiff, UK.

Equally eager to explore collaborations within musical theater, pop, and commercial music, Golden has collaborated with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Deltron 3030, Michael Bolton, Victory Boyd and Infinity Song, Celtic Woman, Mannheim Steamroller, Julian Kerins, Harlem Gospel Choir, and The Irish Tenors. She is featured on concept albums for the musicals Goodbye New York, Song of Solomon, and Platinum Girls by Andrew Beall, recorded on Broadway Records, feature documentary film After Sherman with music by Tamar-kali, and commercials for Offerup and the YMCA. Her recent involvement in other musical theater productions includes Masked, The Musical at 54Below, Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 at New Studio Broadway, Sondheim Tribute “A Little Night Sondheim” at The Green Room 42, Most Happy Fella at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Bettinger’s Luggage at AMT Theater, Anne Frank at the Actor’s Temple, and a concert version of Goodbye New York at 54Below.

“Played with eloquent command,” according to Strings Magazine, Golden’s album Tanbou Kache (Hidden Drum) on the New Focus Recordings label highlights Haitian cello and piano music by Justin Élie, Werner Jaegerhuber, Frantz Casséus, Carmen Brouard, Julio Racine, Daniel Bernard Roumain, and Jean “Rudy” Perrault. Recorded with pianist Shawn Chang, the album celebrates Haiti’s rich and fascinating tradition of art music and outlines the stylistic and chronological trajectory of key composers within this tradition from the 20th century to the present. 

An active chamber musician, Golden performs alongside violist Gregory K. Williams in the Golden Williams Duo, which focuses on collaborations with living composers, and has premiered works such as David Bertrand’s Bourg Mulatresse, Clarissa Baquiran’s ŠĮŃGKÏŁ, David Wolfson’s Mood Swings, Leonor Falcón’s Nos. 1 & 2, and Michael Kosch's Sassetta. Prior to this, Golden performed with the Red Door Chamber Players, a nine-member ensemble based in Long Island, and the Boston-based Firebrand Concert Series, of which she was the Founder and Artistic Director for three seasons. Golden has also participated in chamber music festivals including Killington Music Festival, Musicorda, and Italian summer music festivals Zephyr and Musica Lozzo. 

As an educator, Golden specializes in teaching college and high school students, while having coached chamber music and taught cello lessons for students of all levels and ages. She is Adjunct Professor of Cello Performance at Long Island University - Post Campus. Prior to this, she was Lecturer in Music at Washington College, where she taught Applied Cello and Chamber Music for three years. She has also served as Adjunct Professor of Strings at Wagner College, the Cello Faculty/Mentor for National Music Festival, Cello Instructor for Ethical Culture Fieldston School’s Before School Music program, Founder and Director of the Red Door Chamber Partners Educational Program, and Cello Faculty for Mountain Springs Music Festival in northern Utah. In 2011, Golden began working for Open Access to Music Education for Children, a music center for Boston’s Haitian community run by Youth and Family Enrichment Services. While working with cello students who had left Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, Golden found that learning music, including traditional Haitian folk songs, helped them to adjust to their new lives and deal with trauma they had experienced. This experience inspired her nearly decade-long interest in Haitian art music. 

Her article “Staging the Nation Through Mizik Savant: Art Music of the Haitian Diaspora” was published in the Fall 2018 issue of The Journal of Haitian Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2. Along with Shawn Chang, she presented lecture recitals on Haitian music for cello and piano at the 5th Symposium of Caribbean Art Music held at the Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico and at Montreal’s Conservatoire de musique et d’art dramatique du Québec, hosted by the Société de recherche et de diffusion de la musique haïtienne. In 2012, Golden served as a Guest Teaching Artist for the summer program at the École de Musique Dessaix-Baptiste in Jacmel, Haiti. 

Golden holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Cello Performance from Rutgers University, where she completed her doctoral research on Haitian art music. She also holds a Master of Arts in Cello Performance with Distinction from the Royal Academy of Music in London, a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Cornell University, and a Bachelor of Music degree in Cello Performance from San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Golden’s primary teachers were Jean Michel Fonteneau, Mark Kosower, Felix Schmidt, and Jonathan Spitz. Golden has also received instruction from renowned artists including Bernard Greenhouse, Colin Carr, Fred Sherry, Steven Doane, Alan Harris, Matt Haimovitz, Philip Mueller, and Sadao Harada. She was awarded a Hill and Hollow Artist Residency, John Baker Career Development Award, Sir Stapley Educational Trust Award, and a Bursary Award from the Royal Academy of Music. Learn more at www.goldencello.com.