Diane Chaplin, celliste extraordinaire, moved from New York City to Portland, Oregon, in the summer of 2009. Before taking up residence on the west coast, she spent 21 years as the cellist of the Colorado Quartet and with them had an international career which took her around the globe. The Quartet was the first all-female string quartet to perform the complete Beethoven Quartet cycle in both North America and Europe and their recordings of these works can be heard on the Parnassus label. Other award-winning discs are available on the Parnassus, Mode and Albany labels.

Diane has held teaching positions at many prestigious institutions of higher learning, including Bard College, Oberlin College-Conservatory and Swarthmore College and has given master classes at the Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, Indiana University, Cleveland Institute of Music, Cincinnati Conservatory, Stanford University and the Banff Centre. As a member of the Colorado Quartet, she was visiting chamber music faculty at Yale University in 2009. Diane is also an inspiring teacher of young students, and trained hundreds of cellists during a two-decade tenure at the Allen-Stevenson School in Manhattan.

Diane holds a BFA degree from the California Institute of the Arts, where she was a student of Cesare Pascarella, and a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Harvey Shapiro. She received a Special Prize from the International Cello Competition in Viņa del Mar, Chile, and a Certificate from the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, and has appeared in solo concerts throughout the United States and Europe. She has performed several times with Mikhail Baryshnikov, and has often appeared in cameo performances with the Flying Karamazov Brothers.

Diane is an eclectic musician, with interests that range from the traditional great works of the western musical canon to ... things that are not. Composing and arranging music have always been passions for Diane. At the age of nine she performed her first composition, a little Halloween song accompanied by cello; throughout college she arranged many things for cello ensemble. In 2008, she published two volumes of student cello music, Cello Champs. Occasionally she wanders very far from center: a recent deviation from the classical path was the composition of songs and incidental music for a spoof musical (The Red Ukulele) which was performed at the Oregon Country Fair. Diane plays flute and piccolo with the Fighting Instruments of Karma Marching Chamber Band/Orchestra at Country Fair and throughout the northwest.

A skilled music administrator, Diane is both the Production Manager for Portland's Metropolitan Youth Symphony and the Administrative Director of the Soundfest Chamber Music Festival & Quartet Institute on Cape Cod. She is an ardent yoga practitioner and certified yoga instructor and volunteers with Street Yoga, a dedicated group that brings yoga to homeless and at-risk youth.

Diane is exploring Portland's musical life with solo and chamber music performances and an active teaching studio. She has appeared as soloist with the Agnieszka Laska Dance Company and on chamber music concerts presented by Cascadia Composers. Electrified porta-cello in hand, she performs with two Portland bands: the tree-hugger-indie-pop band Ocean Age and the elite circus band BIJLA KpantsK. An official espresso snob, Diane drinks locally-roasted Badbeard's Deep Cello Espresso.

Fanfare Magazine, The Late Quartets of Beethoven:
... The Colorado String Quartet tears into these works with a combined tension, cohesion, grace, and complete understanding of the music.
... They are not only master architects, but master painters. Their palette of sound has a hidden layer of hues that no one else has discovered or used.
... this is the only set of the late quartets you'll ever need. Buy it, and marvel. These four women bring Beethoven to intense, blazing life.