Douglas B. Johnson, composer, violinist and conductor, was born in Oakland, California in 1949. He studied from 1970-72 in Vienna, working with composer Friedrich Neumann and violinist Akos Berei. He graduated magna cum laude from Humboldt State University in 1975, and worked as a freelance musician, moving back to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1980. Returning to graduate school in 1983, he earned an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked with composers Andrew Imbrie and Ollie Wilson, and conductor Michael Senturia. In 1988, he joined the faculty at Trinity College.  He primarily teaches courses in music theory, composition, and coaches instrumental music ensembles.     
The composer writes:                               See attached CV
I compose music in various genres: music for virtuoso soloists, songs, chamber music, as well as choral and orchestral music. I am particularly interested in the idiomatic potentials and limitations of unamplified music. I am excited by the presence of live performers and their mastery of their instruments and voices. I seek to create a music that speaks at once to the emotions and to the intellect, a music in which the role of the listener is as important as that of the performer.

Click below to hear some excerpts from recent works.

* Scherzo from "...at evening, in the shadow of the volcano they are dancing..." (1993)
Anthony de Bedts, piano, in recital at the Schubertsaal in the Konzerthaus, Vienna, Austria

click here

* from "Songs of Time, of Love, of Wonder" (1995): The Love a Life can Show Below" (Emily Dickinson)
Elizabeth Anker, contralto; and Leslie Amper, piano; in recital at the Longy School of Music, Cambridge, MA

click here

* excerpt from "Il terzodecimo canto" (1999)
The New England String Ensemble Quartet, premiere performance in Hamlin Hall, Trinity College

click here

 

Click below to access an open structure music research-link web project by John Webster '01.

Research Jump Point