Raised in Ridgewood and Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Juntwait attended Northern Highlands Regional High School, where she first developed an interest in choral music.
[1] Later, she studied to be an opera singer – she was a lyric soprano – and earned a degree in voice from the Manhattan School of Music in 1980.
[4] On Sirius, Juntwait hosted three or four live broadcasts a week during the opera season, and recorded introductions for hundreds of archive performances aired on the channel.
Juntwait also performed in radio theater plays produced by NPR veteran Joe Bevilacqua, including The Whithering of Willoughby and the Professor.
The plays aired on "The Comedy-O-Rama Hour",[5] heard on XM Satellite Radio's Sonic Theater Channel.