Diane Heffner

Clarinet

Diane Heffner is an active freelance clarinetist and teacher on both historical and modern instruments. She performs regularly with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Boston Baroque, and Handel and Haydn Society, and she has appeared with American Classical Orchestra (Connecticut), Rebel Baroque Orchestra (New York), Musicians of the Old Post Road, Chicago Opera Theatre, Classical Arts Orchestra (Chicago), Dayton Bach Society, Portland Baroque Orchestra (Oregon), Connecticut Early Music Festival, Boston Early Music Festival, and American Bach Soloists. In 2005, she appeared as basset clarinet soloist with the Arcadia Players on the Mozart Clarinet Concerto at Dartmouth College.

On modern clarinet, in her home base of Boston, she is a founding member of Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble and Alcyon Chamber Ensemble, and she appears regularly with Alea III, Boston Gay Men’s Chorus, Emmanuel Music, Prism Opera, Vermont Symphony, and various other freelance ensembles.

Heffner is on the applied faculty at Tufts University, the Cambridge School of Weston, and the All-Newton Music School. She received B.M. and M.M. degrees with honors from the New England Conservatory, where she studied clarinet with Joseph Allard and chamber music with Rudolph Kolisch and Leonard Shure.