Diamond was born on 4 June 1948 in
Kitchener,
Ontario, Canada. Diamond studied piano under
Clifford Poole and her PhD at the
University of Toronto, graduating in 1978. At York University, she was Associate Professor of Music, Associate Dean of Fine Arts and Director of the Graduate Program in Music. She was a visiting professor at
Harvard University in 1999. and Scandinavia, such as
Inuit and
First Nations conventional and improvised song traditions,
Algonkian Christian
hymns, musical instruments in Native communities, and
Lapland’s
Sámi joik form of song. She has also studied the musical practices associated with Albanian weddings in the
Prespa region and music in
Pacific Islands cultures. Diamond contributed to the
Encyclopedia of Music in Canada. Diamond has served on the boards of the
Society for Ethnomusicology and the
International Council for Traditional Music She was elected as a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) in 2008, was named a Fellow of the
Trudeau Foundation in 2009 and was appointed as a
Member of the Order of Canada in 2012. She received the Gold Medal of the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) in 2014. == References ==