Monday, Feb 29, 2016
Westminster Choir College junior Jennifer Kreider has been selected to receive the Clifton Foundation’s 2016 Emerging Artists Award. Established to recognize exceptional and talented individuals at six academic institutions, the award includes a May 11 performance at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia and a $5,000 scholarship.
A voice performance major studying with Laura Brooks Rice, Kreider is from Morgantown, W. Va., and the daughter of Westminster Choir College alumna Rebecca Abram Kreider ’83. Last summer she won first place in her division at the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) National Vocal Competition in Greensboro, N.C. Also last summer, she participated in the CoOPERAtive Program and returned with CoOPERAtive in January 2016 as the Dew Fairy in their production of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. Kreider has also appeared in Westminster’s productions of Menotti’s The Medium in the leading role of Monica, and Viardot’s Cendrillon as the Fairy Godmother.
She is enrolled in Rider’s Baccalaureate Honors Program, and she has been on the Dean’s List since her freshman year. She is also pursuing a minor in German language. Additionally, she is a campus tutor for students in German, piano, and music theory, and she gives voice lessons to children in the Princeton area. She is a member of Westminster’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota, a female service fraternity dedicated to upholding the highest standards of music and furthering the development of music in America and throughout the world. She serves as a section leader for the church choir at St. Nicholas of Tolentine Catholic Church in Atlantic City, N.J. After graduation from Westminster in May of 2017, she plans to attend graduate school and then to travel abroad in order to improve her languages and pursue a career in opera performance and teaching at the collegiate level.