It’s a warm spring afternoon in Balboa Park and the gentle notes of Wojtek Blecharz’s meditative Park Opera float in the breeze. Dr. Ariana Warren is perched peacefully in a banyan tree with her eyes closed, whispering clarinet notes as onlookers sit entranced. 

Later that evening, she’s down in the orchestra pit conjuring the howling murder chords of the dramatic finale of Bizet’s Carmen with San Diego City Ballet Orchestra. 

Dr. Warren thrives on variety, versatility, and virtuosity. 

One day her bass clarinet will be dreaming up the magic of the sugar plum fairy in Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker with the San Diego City Ballet Orchestra; the next day she’ll be doing the Time Warp (again!) as her saxophone wails and the crowd roars in a rowdy production of the cult classic The Rocky Horror Show at Cygnet Theatre. 

Next, she’s soaring through classic Broadway melodies as a hundred voices join in celebration and the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus lifts the roof off of the Balboa Theatre.

As the sun sets over the Rady Shell, the stage lights dim and a low growl creeps up from the orchestra. It isn’t a synthesizer or sound effect—it’s Ariana, summoning the sinister swagger of Oogie Boogie on contrabass clarinet as the San Diego Symphony launches into The Nightmare Before Christmas. 

At Disney Hall, she helped celebrate Steve Reich’s 75th birthday with Red Fish Blue Fish alongside the Bang on a Can All-Stars, in an epic performance of Reich’s hypnotic Music for 18 Musicians.

Then it’s the cinematic soundscapes of OMNIHARMONIUM, where electronic reverberators swell her tempestuous woodwinds into a transcendent squall of electrified horns.

As a professor of music at Cuyamaca College and as private instructor to woodwind students around the world, Dr. Warren teaches a strong foundation in musical technique along with the philosophy that curiosity and versatility are key to finding a successful musical path.

She earned bachelor and master’s degrees in orchestral clarinet performance at the Peabody Conservatory of Music before completing a Doctor of Musical Arts at the University of California San Diego, where experimental music thrives.

Her expertise spans the past, present, and future of music.