Born in Chicago, Goldberg studied at the Chicago Musical College, California's Mill's College, and the University of California at Berkeley, a center for historically informed performance of early music. At Berkeley, she worked with harpsichordists Ralph Kirkpatrick and Gustav Leonhardt. She would become one of the leading missionaries for early music, teaching in the Bay Area and around the world.

In 1981, she founded the Philharmonic Baroque, one of the first early music groups in North America, and later appointed Nicholas McGegan as music director. Now preparing to celebrate its 25th anniversary, the group is one of the most-recorded ensembles of its kind in the United States.

Five years later, Goldberg founded MusicSources, a center for historically informed performance practice in Berkeley that includes a museum, library, and instrument collection. She also created the early music studies program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the San Francisco Early Music Society (SFEMS) and was the longtime president of the Junior Bach Society. She was the editor of an edition of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.

Goldberg will be buried in a private service tomorrow. Planning for a public tribute concert is underway.