For well over 20 years, musician Diane Arkenstone has gained worldwide acclaim with her extensive repertoire of distinctive instrumental recordings which garnered much success within the ambient, health and wellness circles. Arkenstone has incredible success with Neo Pacifica, the independent label she launched in the late 90’s. Yet at heart, the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist--who recalls penning her first song at age three, four years before she first picked up an acoustic guitar—has always been a soulful storyteller, passionate and artful at weaving emotions through a perfect blend of graceful melodies and poetic words.
Arkenstone’s ongoing flow of songwriting energy also stems in part from a wealth of unique life experiences, including everything from the joys and heartbreaks of love to a lifetime of hardship and survival due to various medical ailments related to the complete AV block in her heart. Having recently had open heart surgery and the installation of her sixth pacemaker, and enduring 34 surgeries for heart, lung and kidneys starting in her early childhood, she is very much in tune with the sacredness of life; in 2004, she was an official spokesperson for the American Heart Association. One of the reasons Arkenstone took up guitar as a child was the fact that she could hold it close to her chest and feel the healing vibration of the strings and the wood against her body. While she trained as an opera singer and started singing in local clubs around Central California when she was 16, she ultimately chose modern instrumentals as a musical pathway because it was so “beautiful and healing for me.”
Arkenstone’s success in that genre and the related realms of Celtic, global and Native American music is unparalleled, both as a recording artist and label/owner entrepreneur. Having seen the difficulties her then-husband and frequent musical partner David Arkenstone was having being treated and compensated fairly by the labels he had signed with, Diane—without any formal business training—launched Neo Pacifica Recordings and her publishing company Mulamu Music, with the simple goal of releasing their own music.
She has never let the lines of genre stop her from exploring the depths of music and where it can take her.
