Diane Oxner

Oxner, Diane

Diane Oxner. Soprano, teacher, b Lunenburg, NS, 10 Nov 1928; B MUS (Curtis) 1954. Her mother, Pearl Young Oxner (1899-1968), was active locally for 50 years as a contralto, a teacher, and the conductor of the Lunenburg Male Choir, which performed at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

Diane Oxner attracted attention at the 1950 Halifax Music Festival and studied 1950-4 at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. She received honourable mention in the 1954-5 'Singing Stars of Tomorrow'. Active in Halifax music in the 1950s, she took leading roles in several operas, sang on CBC radio (eg, 'Invitation,' summer 1955) and TV, and appeared 1956-8 at the Nova Scotia Festival of the Arts.

In 1958 Oxner began teaching at the New Brunswick Academy of Music and became a church soloist in Saint John. In the years following she performed extensively on radio and in recital in southern New Brunswick and was a soloist with the New Brunswick SO. She was music director 1969-72 of the New Brunswick Opera Association. In 1974 she moved to Scotland, but she returned to Canada in 1982. In 1985 she became choral director of the Lunenburg Chorale. In 1991 she continued to teach privately and at the Maritime Conservatory of Music in Halifax. Among her pupils has been Sarah McLachlan. Oxner's repertoire included many folksongs. She made the LP Traditional Folksongs of Nova Scotia (1973, Rodeo CCLP-2011) and also participated in Canadian Folk Songs: A Centennial Collection (9-RCA CS-100/5-ACM 39).