Biography

Diane Phoenix-Neal is an Assistant Professor of Music at Fayetteville State University where she teaches violin, viola and chamber music. A sought-after chamber musician and as a soloist, she performs regularly throughout the southeast. She serves as principal solo violist with the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival in Virginia, and as co-principal violist of the Carolina Chamber Symphony. During her seven year tenure as the violist of the Joachim Quartet, the Joachim was the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including finalist at the Banff International String Quartet Competition, a French Foreign Ministry Cultural Exchange Grant Award and featured artist broadcast recordings for Radio France and Canadian radio. Ms. Phoenix-Neal has performed in chamber music and solo recitals at Carnegie Hall, at the Kennedy Center, at Salle Pleyel in Paris, at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal, and at the music festivals of Banff, Bowdoin, Penn's Woods, Gernsbach (Germany), Spoleto (Italy) and Evian (France). She has collaborated in concert with such artists as Lynn Harell, Bruno Pasquier, Dimitry Sitkovetsky, and Geraldine Walther. Her mentors include Sally Peck, William Lincer, Paul Doktor, the Amadeus Quartet and the Juilliard Quartet, and she was an invited participant in the masterclasses of Atar Arad, Bruno Giuranna, John Graham,Timothy Eddy (Orion Quartet) and Walter Lewin. She holds degrees from the North Carolina School of the Arts and from the Juilliard School, and received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Solo appearances have included performances with the North Carolina Symphony, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, and the Gate City Camerata in the United States, and with the Orchestre de Picardie and Ensemble Orchestral de la Cote d'Opale in France. While residing in France, Ms. Phoenix-Neal was the principal solo violist of the Orchestre de Picardie, a position she held for eight years and which culminated in an unprecedented 1994 tour of five cities in China. More recently, her interest in French music for the viola has led her to complete two critical performance editions of the music of Georges Migot, a composer that she continues to champion in recital. Ms. Phoenix-Neal has been a teaching and performing faculty member of the Eastern Music Festival since 1997.

Dr. Diane Phoenix-Neal

Assistant Professor 

Office: Rosenthal Building 203
Phone: 672-1749
Fax: 672-1572
Email: dphoenix@uncfsu.edu