Diana Hamilton is a musician and music educator based on the Island of Arran.

Diana studied at the RSAMD, specialising in piano, voice and percussion. After graduating, she gained a teaching qualification and spent many years teaching music in schools, and visiting them as an examiner for the Scottish Qualifications Authority.

She has arranged many pieces for school groups, especially percussion ensembles, tailoring them to suit the specific instruments available in each school.

Diana has always been fascinated with how music is put together and has become increasingly interested in composing. She aims to make her compositions accessible to the listener by using conventional harmonies ‘spiced up’ with more modern jazz harmonies. Her fondness for the rhythmic vitality of Latin American music is often noticeable in the livelier movements of her work.

Both her String Quartet and more recently her Cello Sonata have been given warm receptions in performances by professional players, in various parts of Scotland. Besides the many arrangements for school ensembles, Diana’s other works include choral arrangements and compositions, Bagatelles for piano, ‘Sea-Drift’ for piano quartet, and some commissioned songs.

Since moving to the Island of Arran, this has been an influence in Diana’s musical life and she has composed and arranged some Arran songs. She felt honoured to work with violinist Angus Anderson on the first performance of John Maxwell Geddes’ “Confluens”, a work for violin and piano commissioned by the Arran Theatre and Arts Trust for the McLellan festival in 2007, and to meet and discuss the performance with the composer.

Later, Diana composed some incidental music for the play “Carlin Moth” by Robert McLellan, the Scottish playwright in whose honour the festival was created.

In December 2015, Diana was one of the 6 finalists in the Radio 3 Carol Competition. Along with the other finalists’ carols, her setting of ‘Comes the Light’ was sung on air, by the BBC Singers, over the festive season.