Meet Jessica Berns-Garner, an opera singer, composer, and voice teacher.  Ms. Berns-Garner has been a performer and composer since childhood, growing into a mature artist with a profound passion for classical voice and opera.  Whether singing, writing, or teaching, she brings her commitment to excellence and her passionate artistry to all her work.

Ms. Berns-Garner grew up in Los Angeles, where she began singing, playing piano, and composing music at an early age.  She regularly was performing in musicals as a teenager and had her first composition performed in high school, an Ave Maria written for her own voice, cello, flute and piano.  Despite her promise in music, Ms. Berns-Garner thought her career lay elsewhere and went to college at UCLA as a pre-med student.  However, the summer after her first year she had a transformative experience at the Idyllwild Music Festival and realized she could not ignore her passion for music.  Unable to transfer into a double music major for Voice and Composition, she studied Music History, where she excelled.   In her senior year, she wrote an award-winning capstone thesis, "The Virtuosa: The Coloratura Fachs in Roles in the 18th and 19th Centuries and the Use of Social Agency," combining her expertise in music history and love of opera and her voice type.  

For her graduate education, Ms. Berns-Garner studied Vocal Arts Performance at California State University, Northridge, where she studied voice with Dr. Deanna Murray, and it was then that she met her future husband, Kirk Garner.  This was a foundational time for Ms. Berns-Garner's artistry, where she not only continued to study voice, but also acting, dance, Alexander Technique, and vocal pedagogy.  Also during this time, Ms. Berns-Garner had this opportunity to sing Frasquita in Carmen in the newly constructed, then named Valley Performing Arts Center, later renamed The Soraya.  Graduating in 2013, she went on to begin performing with local opera companies, learning a variety of roles, some favorites including covering and performing Phoebe in Yeoman of the Guard,  covering Juliette in Roméo et Juliette, singing Zerlina in Don Giovanni,  and singing Countess Stasi in The Gipsy Princess.  At this time, Ms. Berns-Garner opened her private voice studio and began teaching students of all ages. 

Just prior to the pandemic, it was clear that Ms. Berns-Garner's voice was taking a turn toward the dramatic and had become a Dramatic Coloratura Soprano.  In 2022, she began studying voice with Jessica Tivens-Schneiderman, and afterwards she began to accept fuller roles, covering Blanche in Les Dialogue des Carmélites, performing Second Maid in Daphne, and covering the title role in Anna Bolena.  

Ms. Berns-Garner continues to work and maintain a private voice studio in Los Angeles.  Her current projects include singing Parasya in Sorochyntsi Fair by Mussorgsky ​with Independent Opera Company and continuing to compose.