At 6 years old I would turn down the volume of the TV next to the piano in the living room and start playing the piano to accompany the picture - at 6 years old. I began formal piano lessons in 3rd grade at age 8 and have been playing and writing music ever since.

My senior year in High School at the prestigious Dallas, Texas Booker T. Washington High School of the Performing and Visual Arts (The 2nd Arts High School opened in the U.S.) I received the Best Composition Award for my Piano Duet, “Ragin’ Right Hand Rag.” In High School I was already arranging and orchestration works for the Band and Orchestra. Many people from my graduating class went on to lucrative careers in all forms of the Arts: 2 Grammy Winning jazz Musicians, several acclaimed Hollywood Actors, 2 acclaimed painters, a rock musician in a famous Rock band, and several others.

After winning a scholarship I decided to study Music Theory and Composition at Southern Methodist University (SMU) also in Dallas.

Shortly after College graduation I moved to New York City in 1995 and immediately started working and quickly became the Music Director for several Off-Broadway Productions and touring productions and soon started playing in the pit of my first Broadway show: Annie Get Get Your Gun starring Bernadette Peters and also the Revival of A Chorus Line. I have music directed over a dozen Off-Broadway Shows including Forbidden Broadway 2001: A Spoof Odyssey and The Revival of Seussical The Musical. Also I have Conducted/Music Directed over 150 productions at the most prestigious Regional Theaters across the country.

Because I usually focus on streamlined and focused storytelling through music I became known as a sought-after Vocal Coach that helps people land coveted roles in Broadway productions, Off- Broadway Shows, and regional productions.

I have also has worked as a faculty, adjunct faculty member, and accompanist at many Universities and training schools in the New York area including: The Actor’s Studio Drama School, New York University Playwrights Horizons Studio, Marymount Manhattan College, The American Music and Dramatic Academy, Stagedoor Manor, Papermill Playhouse Summer Conservatory, The Stella Adler Acting Studio, Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, and HB Studio. As a private vocal coach, I have worked with many of broadway’s top talents. Voted Best Music Director 2015, 2016 & 2017 for the Dallas Awards by BroadwayWorld.com.

In 2005, I was chosen to participate in the prestigious BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop, where writer’s are trained and groomed to write theatrical Musicals. Many well-known musical writers and shows have started there - Little Shop Of Horrors & Beauty And The Beast (Alan Menken), Nine (Maury Yeston), Avenue Q (Bobby Lopez) , Raisin, Best Little Whorehouse In Texas (Carol Hall), Fun Home & Thoroughly Modern Millie (Jeaninne Tesori), and many, many others. While at the Workshop I wrote dozens of theater songs, a one Act Musical called “Monday At the Moonstruck”, as well as an uncompleted musical, “Cold Comfort” based on the novel “Cold Comfort Farm.”

I get really excited by playing auditions in New York for both casting agencies and private clients that bring me in to play for them. I enjoy being in the audition room and seeing the new talents that keeps coming into the city. I have had the immense pleasure of working alongside, preparing and coaching many Broadway talents through the years and playing auditions for them and accompanying them on stage:

Bernadette Peters, Tom Wopat, Judy Kaye, Sally Mays, Patricia Birch, Bryan Batt, Andy Blankenbuehler, Simon Jones, Rebecca Luker, Anthony Rapp, T. Oliver Reed, Paula Leggett Chase, Joel Grey, Will Chase, Patti Cohenhour, Jason Robert Brown, Loni Ackerman-Kennedy, Debbie Gravitte, Stephen Carlisle, Martin Charnin, Stephen Schwartz, Maury Yeston, Lily Cooper, Glory Crampton, Manu Narayan, Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty, Frenchie Davis, Jennifer Cody, Ann Sanders, Barrett Foa, Montego Glover, Cheyenne Jackson, Terry Burrell, Ron Bohmer, Phillip Boykin, Jim Walton, Heather MacRae, Dev Janki, Francis Jue, Baayork Lee, Rondi Reed, Nancy Ford & Gretchen Cryer are just some of the names you might recognized that I have worked with over the years.

In 2017 my A cappella Women’s Choir piece, “Tears!” was chosen by a panelist of the top choral publishers as Best Original Secular Composition in the SheetMusicPlus.com Composition Competition.

During the pandemic, I decided to use this time wisely and to reconnect with writing my own music - just for me - and it has been the most prolific time of my writing career thus far. Just from late 2020 to early 2023 I wrote: 14 Chamber Orchestra Pieces, 9 String Orchestra Works, 7 String Quartets, 23 Orchestral Arrangements, 9 Choral Works, 9 Piano Pieces, 2 Film Trailers, A background Score to a short play, An Organ Solo, 2 Theme Songs for Media projects, 2 Woodwind Octets, 1 Brass Octet with Percussion, and 3 Viola/Piano Duets.

You can listen to and watch more works by me on my youTube channel: Diamond S Music.

My music publishing company, DIAMOND S MUSIC is for my original music and arranging publishing.