Niamh Kearney

Niamh Kearney is an Irish mezzo-soprano currently undertaking Postgraduate study at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. She is a Guildhall Scholar and studies under the tutelage of Sarah Pring. Niamh is a choral scholar at St John’s Hyde Park and is generously supported by the William Gibbs’s Educational Trust.

Niamh is a current member of Genesis Sixteen, The Sixteen’s prestigious Young Artist Programme led by Harry Christophers. She was a member of the CCI Studio, Chamber Choir Ireland’s programme for emerging choral artists directed by Eamonn Dougan. Furthermore, she was a ‘Next Gen’ Young Artist with the vocal ensemble Vox Urbane, directed by Dan Ludford Thomas and Helen Mayerhoff. With the group she performed as a soloist in Handel’s Dixit Dominus and Purcell’s Funeral Sentences at St John’s Smith Square, and in Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 with the Hackney Singers and His Majesty’s Sagbutts & Cornetts.

Niamh’s love of singing began at the age of ten when she joined her local church choir, sparking a passion that led her to London to pursue formal training. She graduated with First Class Honours from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, studying with Yolanda Grant Thompson and Helen Yorke. During her time there, she was a Choral Scholar at the Old Royal Naval College Chapel in Greenwich, performing in numerous large-scale orchestral concerts.

Performance highlights include alto solos in Bach St John Passion with Tiffin Boys’ Choir, Northampton Bach Choir and the Old Royal Naval College Trinity Laban Chapel Choir, accompanied by the Brandenburg Baroque Soloists, and Purcell’s Come, ye sons of art with The Royal Hospital Chelsea. She has appeared in broadcasts for BBC Songs of Praise and BBC Radio 4 Choral Evensong, where she featured as cantor soloist.

Whilst she has a love of early music and Baroque, Niamh has a wide musical repertoire including opera, Lieder, contemporary and folk. She is particularly drawn to the centuries old melismatic Irish singing style of Sean-nos, and was the main soloist on a live broadcast Mass, sung in Irish for Irish National Radio.