In 1971, when he was a sophomore at Berkeley High, Rick Diamond auditioned for a new orchestra and was accepted as a member of the Berkeley Promenade. He has been playing second violin in the orchestra ever since, except for the a few periods when his “day job” has taken him on sabbaticals to Harvard, Princeton and the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. But residency on the East Coast has not kept him from the orchestra. “Once when I asked Kent for a year’s leave, he said, ‘Why don’t you fly back for the concerts,’” says Rick. “So I did.”
A Ph.D. in architecture, Rick Diamond has been a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 1981. His specialty is studying energy use in buildings. “Basically, we conduct research on how energy is used in buildings and then try to come up with ways to make them more healthy, comfortable and energy efficient,” explains Rick. “Currently we’re setting up a program at work where staff are volunteering to go into the public elementary schools to talk about energy and the environment. I’ve been finding the third graders ask the same questions about the environment as my former Harvard graduate students.”
Rick says that what he loves about the Berkeley Symphony is “the opportunity to play challenging music as part of a group that is really committed to playing. We work hard and play hard.” One of his favorite activities is inviting friends to bring their young children to the dress rehearsals. “They can sit wherever they like, leave when they want and I try to bring them up on the stage before the rehearsal so they can see the instruments up close. The kids always love seeing the harps, the celeste, all the percussion and the big brass. I asked one girl which instrument she liked best and she said her favorite was ‘the curvy one filled with spit.’”
—Richard Reynolds, June 2000
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