Diane Heffner is an active freelance clarinetist and teacher on both modern and historical instruments. On modern clarinet, she is a member of Alea III, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, Alcyon Chamber Ensemble, Solar Winds, and has appeared with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus, Emmanuel Music, Boston Musica Viva, and various other freelance ensembles.
As a period clarinet specialist, she performs regularly with Boston Baroque, Handel & Haydn Society, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra (San Francisco), Arcadia Players, and has appeared with Opera Lafayette (DC), The American Classical Orchestra (Connecticut), Rebel Baroque Orchestra (New York), Musicians of the Old Post Road, Chicago Opera Theatre, the Classical Arts Orchestra (Chicago), the Dayton Bach Society, Portland Baroque Orchestra (Oregon), the Connecticut Early Music Festival, the Boston Early Music Festival, and the American Bach Soloists (California). She has recorded with many of these ensembles on the Telarc, Erato, Harmonia Mundi, Cedille, CRI, Arabesque, GM, Koch, and Troy record labels. In April 2005, Ms. Heffner performed the Mozart Clarinet Concerto on period basset clarinet at Dartmouth College with Arcadia Players. Ms. Heffner is on the applied faculty at Tufts University, the Cambridge School of Weston, and the All-Newton Music School.
She received both BM and MM degrees with honors from the New England Conservatory where she studied clarinet with Joseph Allard and chamber music with Rudolph Kolisch and Leonard Shure.