Music Street founder Diane Katzenberg Braun grew up in Baltimore, Maryland where she graduated from the Peabody Preparatory program and studied with teachers from the Peabody Conservatory and Goucher College. At the age of 16 she was invited by Argentinian violinist and Yehudi Menuhin protégée Alberto Lysy to study chamber music in Italy for the summer. She is a graduate of Oberlin College where she majored in Sociology, having spent one year in the Oberlin Conservatory. Ms. Braun also did post graduate work in music theory and history at Brandeis University. After 25 years of teaching piano privately and at the Groton School and Indian Hill Arts, she returned to school in 1999 graduating with honors from the New England Conservatory, earning a Master of Music degree in Collaborative Piano. Her piano teachers there were Irma Vallecillo and Kayo Iwama. Working with numerous singers and instrumentalists, she performed in masterclasses for Warren Jones, Pierre Vallet, Dianne Richardson, Bruce Yeh, Paul Katz, James Buswell, Ben Zander, Karl Paulnak amongst many others.

Past teachers have included Renaldo Reyes, Emil Danenberg, Victor Rosenbaum and the Apple Hill Chamber Players. In 1999 she spent a month in Italy as staff accompanist for the Oberlin at Cassalmaggiore Festival. In the summer of 2003 she performed vocal repertoire in masterclasses for Graham Johnson, John Harbison, Martin Katz, Craig Smith and John Hall at Songfest in California. She has accompanied string masterclasses at the Walnut Hill Summer Chamber Music Program.

Ms. Braun was the long time assistant to renowned mezzo soprano D’Anna Fortunato, in her studio at the New England Conservatory, coaching and accompanying students in their performances. The summer of 2008 found her performing at Boston’s Faneuil Hall in a four part American Song Series with soprano Sarah Cossaboon. Collaborating with talented young players at the Walnut Hill School in Natick, Massachusetts, at the New England Conservatory, with Project Step in Boston, with Lowell House Opera singers, with Harvard University instrumentalists, she has partnered with a large assortment of instrumentalists, from brass to winds to strings. Ms. Braun has premiered works of Boston composers Curtis Hughes, Howard Frazin, Thomas Oboe Lee and Stephanie Ann Boyd. 

With Music Street Ms. Braun aims to bring the joy and innovation of unique musical programs into focus as a means of connecting to audiences in the many venues where they perform. All Music Street musicians are award winning graduates of Boston's New England Conservatory.

Contact information:

Diane K. Braun  
781-259-0343 (home) 
781-249-0070 (cell)

last updated 2014