Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Diane has been working in the field of early childhood education as a Waldorf teacher and preschool director since 2001. She graduated from the University of California Santa Barbara with a BA in Liberal Arts. She then completed training from The Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training with emphasis on early childhood education. A passion for language and travel, Diane lived and worked in Israel, and Holland, and visited parts of Africa, Cuba, India, the Middle East and Europe. Working as a choreographer and dancer, she created satirical semi-biographical dances from 1990-1995, and performed her original works at ODC, Brady Street Studios, and Theater Artaud. Diane brings her love of movement and story-telling to her work teaching music for children. A current student at the CMC, Diane is a member of Bill Fiege’s woodwind ensemble class, playing alto saxophone, as well as studying privately with Dorothy Barnhouse.

Irene Chagall has been making music with young children for more than twenty-five years. She has taught music and puppetry at numerous elementary schools San Francisco and Marin County. She was appointed as a Research Associate with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage from 2006-09, and is currently directing Let’s Get the Rhythm, a documentary on handclapping games, in collaboration with Steve Zeitlin and City Lore of New York, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, Traditional Arts division. She plays with CMC’s Middle Eastern Ensemble. She is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley. Her Master of Arts degree is from Lone Mountain College, University of San Francisco. She completed one year of intensive private study of classical guitar with Maestro Jose Tomas in Alicante, Spain.