Peter Kwasniewski

Peter Andrew Kwasniewski (born 1971) is an American traditionalist Catholic writer and composer.

Life and career
Kwasniewski was born on 22 March 1971 in Arlington Heights, Illinois. He grew up in New Jersey. At the Delbarton School in Morristown, he received his first serious tutelage in music. He attended Georgetown University for a single year, before starting as a freshman at Thomas Aquinas College in California, where he received his BA in Liberal Arts in 1994. He received his MA in 1996 and his Ph.D. in 2002 from The Catholic University of America, both in philosophy. His MA thesis in 1996 was entitled "The Dialectic of Reason and Faith in Descartes's Meditationes de prima philosophia" and his Ph.D. dissertation defended in 2002 was entitled "The Ecstasy of Love in Thomas Aquinas".

He was a professor at the International Theological Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Austria and an adjunct instructor in music appreciation at the Franciscan University of Steubenville's Austria Program located on the same campus. In 2006, he joined the founding team of Wyoming Catholic College in Lander, Wyoming, where he served as assistant academic dean and director of admissions, and then as choirmaster and Professor of Theology and Philosophy. He also taught music and art history in the college's fine arts curriculum.

In 2016, it was revealed that Kwasniewski was among the clergy and theologians who signed the "Letter of the 45", a letter to all the Catholic cardinals which asked them to "respond to the dangers to Catholic faith and morals" which they alleged that Pope Francis' Amoris Laetitia had posed.

Kwasniewski was a founding board member and scholar of The Aquinas Institute. He remains a fellow of the Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies.

Public reception
In 2016, Cardinal Burke introduced the Czech translation of Resurgent, calling it "very readable and very accessible" and thanking Kwasniewski "for giving us this work." Other positive publicity for this book included New Oxford Review, which claims that "Kwasniewski accurately sums up the current situation in the Church" and that Resurgent is "a starting point for serious discussion" for "revitalizing the Church".

His book Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness was praised by the Catholic Herald in Britain and National Review, both of which published favorable reviews.

Music
Kwasniewski has also worked as a choirmaster and composer. He studied composition and conducting with Roy Horton, abbey organist and music teacher at Delbarton School at St. Mary's Abbey in Morristown, New Jersey. After this he became an assistant choir director at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, California (1990–1994). While in graduate school at the Catholic University of America he served as director of the Schola Cantorum at Old St. John's Catholic Church in Silver Spring, Maryland (1994–1998) and later directed music at the International Theological Institute in Gaming, Austria (1999–2006). He was the founding choirmaster and schola director at Wyoming Catholic College (2007–2018) until the time he left to pursue a full-time writing career.

Among compositions that have received numerous concert and church performances since 1990 may be included settings of the Catholic Mass, religious motets, English hymns, Christmas carols, and liturgical antiphons and acclamations. The Mass settings include Missa Spiritus Domini (1994), Missa Spe Salvi (1995, rev. 2012), Missa Brevis à 3 (1997/2020), Missa Hereditas Mihi à 3 (2016), Missa Honorificentia Populi Nostri (2017), and Missa Rex in Æternum (2018). The work Seven Mandatum Antiphons (2010), consisting of English a cappella settings of the texts from the Maundy Thursday liturgy for the washing of the feet, was dedicated to Arvo Pärt on the occasion of the latter's 75th birthday.

Ensembles that have performed Kwasniewski's choral music include the Ecclesia Choir (dir. Timothy Woods), the Vittoria Ensemble (dir. Rick Wheeler), Cantiones Sacrae (dir. Graeme Adamson)—which recorded a CD, Divine Inspirations, of Kwasniewski's music together with that of British composer Nicholas Wilton—and Cantus Magnus (dir. Matthew Schellhorn).