Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek

Mezzo-soprano Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek (DMA ’18, voice), who’s originally from Belfast, was a member of the vocal quartet Anonymous 4 from 2000 to 2016. Anonymous 4’s performance of the Irish lament “Caoineadh” on Christopher Tin’s album Calling All Dawns, with Horner-Kwiatek as featured soloist, led to a Grammy for best classical music crossover album. Horner-Kwiatek is the founder and artistic director of ModernMedieval, an organization created to promote performance and education in early and new music. It includes ModernMedieval Voices, a female vocal ensemble which fosters collaborative projects featuring early music in conjunction with music from later periods and newly commissioned works.

Horner-Kwiatek specializes in early and new music and has performed throughout Europe and the U.S. She has given world premieres and collaborated with many composers including Judith Weir, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio, Steve Reich, Gregory Spears, and David Lang. She has sung with new music ensembles such as Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt), Ensemble Intercontemporain (Paris), Singcircle, Continuum, Albany Symphony Dogs of Desire, and the Locrian Chamber Ensemble, and with opera companies including English National Opera, Opera Factory London/Zurich, the Royal Opera Covent Garden, and American Opera Projects. She is a frequent soloist with Distinguished Concerts International New York, performing Calling All Dawns at Carnegie and David Geffen halls. She has appeared as a guest soloist with early music ensembles including the Washington Bach Consort, the Sixteen, the Bach Sinfonia, Carmel Bach Festival, Baltimore Consort, Bach Festival of Philadelphia, Armonia Nova, the Folger Consort, Parthenia, and Sonnambula.

In addition to being part of the Juilliard Evening Division faculty, Horner-Kwiatek is a member of the performance faculty at Princeton University where she teaches voice and is one of the directors of Early Music Princeton. She has given residencies and master classes at universities all over the U.S. and has been a visiting artist at Duke University, the Catholic University of America, and SUNY Binghamton, giving seminars on vocal pedagogy for composers and collaborating with student composers to develop and perform new pieces for the voice. She gives lectures on music history, vocal health, vocal pedagogy, and extended vocal techniques and also gives ensemble technique workshops with groups ranging from trios to choirs with more than 100 members.

She holds a BA from Queens University Belfast, an MA in music and music education from Teacher’s College Columbia University, and a DMA from Juilliard.