Sylvia Brigham-Dimiziani was born in 1937. She received her earliest musical training on the piano before studying voice. She earned her Bachelor's degree from Pomona College (1959) and her Master's degree from Juilliard School of Music (1961). She also studied in Paris at L'Ecole Normale de Musique as a Fulbright Scholar, at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, with a coach at Rome Opera, and at the Darmstadt Fereinkurse für neue Musik. She came to Buffalo in 1964 as a member of the first group of Creative Associates at the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts. After leaving Buffalo in 1966 she performed in Italy before joining the faculty at California State University, Northridge. She returned to Buffalo in 1970 to join the music faculty at the University at Buffalo. She remained on the faculty until her retirement in 2001.

While at the University at Buffalo Professor Brigham-Dimiziani taught voice lessons, vocal diction, and courses in vocal literature and chamber music. Her performances as a soprano covered a wide range of repertoire, including works by Bach, Handel, Bononcini, Mozart, Schumann, Satie, Roussel, Ravel, Arrigo, Ives, Schoenberg, Webern, Brant, Del Tredici, Foss, Rorem, Smit, Pousseur, and Fredric Myrow, who composed his Songs from the Japanese for her voice while they were both Creative Associates. Her career was international in scope, with performances at the Maggio Musicale in Florence, the Domaine Musical in Paris, with the Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, and Cleveland Orchestra.