Donna's musical background as a musician began in her living room, where she harmonized with her brother and sister while her brother played guitar. They sang songs by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Simon & Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, and Dan Fogelberg. Other early musical influences include Linda Ronstadt, Ricki Lee Jones, Emmylou Harris and Harry Chapin. She was surrounded by friends and classmates who were very creative and musical. "In Park Forest, it seemed like everyone was playing guitar and writing songs, so it was only natural to do the same."

Donna moved to Chicago in l987, and since then has performed on many stages, such as The Uncommon Ground Coffeehouse, Lucille's, Schuba's, Two Way Street Coffee House, Charlie's Coffeehouse, The Fox Valley Folk Fest, Front Porch Music and The Bluebird Café in Nashville, TN. She has performed at the Jeff Buckley Tribute concerts at the Uncommon Ground and Tom Dundee's "Somebody Else's Troubles" at Lucille's. She was briefly a member of The Art Thieves, a Chicago rock group, led by John Kimsey. Other projects over the years include writing songs for Green Light Performing Company, a children's educational theater and dance group, and assembled the soundtrack for Paula Kamen's play, "Seven Dates with Seven Writers." One of her songs, "Invisible Light," which describes the properties of light and supernovas was performed by Greenlight at The Adler Planetarium (no relation). In l997, she was the voice of the Little Lotto radio jingle, "Metal Detector."

Donna has also enjoyed singing harmony with several musicians, including Tom Dundee, Robbie Fulks (before he was famous), and Buddy Mondlock.

Recordings include a cut on "Live at the Uncommon Ground, Volume I," and three full-length CDs of original material. Her first CD, "All the Riches of the World" was recorded at ACME Studios and Dave Gans' studio basement with the production help of Brad Newton, Art Thieves drummer. For her second CD, Donna broke out on her own to produce Alta Vista Sky. The songs for Alta Vista Sky were recorded at Bubblehaus Studios in Chicago with engineers Matt Crowley, Earl Talbot and Andrew Twiss.

Donna traveled to Creative Caffeine Studios in Nashville to produce her most recent release "Violets and Blues." The CD features some great guest artists, including Andy Leftwich on fiddle and mandolin, Jerry Kimbrough on guitar, Michael Johnson and Muriel Anderson on classical guitar, Wayne Dahl on pedal steel, Dave Lawbaugh and Matthew Burgess on drums, and Sam Levine on flute.

Donna's songs have been featured on WFMT's The Midnight Special, WNUR and WDCB College of DuPage and are starting to receive airplay on independent folk shows across the country and overseas.