Diane Arkenstone

Diane Arkenstone is a composer and musician, owning her own record company, Neo Pacifica Recordings. Her music is often classified as new age music. She is the ex-wife of David Arkenstone who is also a composer and musician. Diane wrote her first song at the age of three, played piano at five and picked up her first guitar at the tender age of seven. "There's music in my head when I wake up," she said. "It's everywhere. I sit down at a piano or with a guitar and suddenly there's a song or a really great chord or melody." Her album, "Jewel in the Sun," debuted at No. 16 on Billboard's New Age charts when it was released in October 2002, peaking at number 11 in all, she's worked on more than forty albums, producing 17 under her own label, Neo Pacifica Recordings, and others under variuos pseudonyms, as well as composing music for the Olympics and television shows. Arkenstone's music embraces many styles, combing Celtic-sounding melodies and Native American rhythms with a distincly techno beat and haunting vocals somewhat reminiscent of Enya. "It's very fun stuff" she said of her work. "It's a little more pop than new age, with a little touch of world." She's something of a musical jack-of-all-trades, playing not only the piano and guitar, but more unusual instruments such as the dulcimer, mandolin, wood flutes and various percussion instruments. Even her eight guitars are all tuned differently to bring added variety to her music. Arkenstone's work has recently been getting significant airplay on satellite radio, particularly on channels devoted to new age music. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.