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Concerts by Composers: Scott Johnson
Works Performed or Excerpted:
1. “John Somebody” – Scott Johnson (electric guitar and tape preparation)
Scott Johnson
Composer Scott Johnson has been a pioneering voice in the new relationship being forged between the classical tradition and the popular culture that surrounds it. Since the early 1980s, he has played an influential role in the trend towards incorporating rock-derived instrumentation into traditionally scored compositions, and the use of taped, sampled and MIDI-controlled electronic elements within instrumental ensembles. His music has been heard in performances by the Kronos Quartet, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Bang on a Can All Stars, and his own ensembles; in dance works performed by the Boston Ballet, the London Contemporary Dance Theater, the Ballets de Monte Carlo; and in Paul Schrader’s film Patty Hearst. His music has been recorded on the Nonesuch, CRI, Point, and Tzadik labels.
Johnson’s scores generally employ both acoustic and electric/electronic instruments, and he has premiered most of his electric guitar writing himself. Compositions which feature sampled voice include the groundbreaking 1982 John Somebody, as well as Americans, Convertible Debts, The Value of People and Things and How It Happens, (commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, and based upon voice recordings of the late Journalist I.F. Stone). Awards include a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship, a Koussevitsky commission, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and four grants from the New York State Council on the Arts; as well as grants and commission support from Lincoln Center, the Meet the Composer/Reader’s Digest Commissioning fund, the Jerome Foundation, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Concert Artists Guild/Mary Flagler Cary Trust. New York City concert venues for Mr. Johnson’s own ensembles have included Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Knitting Factory, and The Kitchen, as well as concert halls, art museums, and festivals throughout Europe and North America.
Johnson’s recent concert appearances include Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Japan Society, the Lincoln Center Festival, the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, Yale University, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s “Great Day in New York” series. Other recent premieres include the Bang on a Can All Stars at Lincoln Center, the New Millennium Ensemble and Cygnus at Merkin Hall, and Sentieri Selvaggi in Milan. Johnson has also published articles and essays on contemporary music, and has lectured at leading conservatories and universities, including San Francisco and Peabody Conservatories, Senzaku Ongaku Daigaku, New York University, the Manhattan School of Music, and Yale.
Scott Johnson on the Experimental Intermedia Series
“As a newcomer in the lost landscape of Manhattan’s ”Downtown” arts scene in 1975, it was not long before I heard about the Experimental Intermedia Foundation. It had a character all its own, because it was also Phill Niblock’s home turf – the kitchen was the green room, the bathroom clearly involved actual baths, and the chairs could be moved aside for a dance party, powered by that nice sound system. Like many young composers, I did my first NYC concert there, and met many fellow artists trying to make an end run around the highly polarized musical world of the time.
It was one of the meeting grounds for what I call The Coalition Of The Miscellaneous: Minimalists, Cageians, improvisers, and rock-inspired hybridizers like myself. All shared one characteristic: none were invited to the halls of High Modernism, the reigning style of the time in conservatories, universities, and most NYC concert halls. Fortunately that polarization has gradually dissipated, giving new generations a much more open and healthy environment. But I must also admit that it was kind of fun, in an angry young kind of way.
If I remember correctly, this recording is a copy of my original home recording of John Somebody. I recorded, engineered, and mixed this myself in a home 8-channel studio, around the time of the Experimental Intermedia concert, a couple of years before the remix I did in a professional studio for the Nonesuch release. Live recordings of dense electric works like this almost always have balance problems, and I think I probably substituted this newly minted, carefully prepared representation of the piece for the radio show.” - Scott Johnson 2011
Scott Johnson in DRAM
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