David C. Johnson

David C. Johnson (born January 30, 1940 in Batavia, New York), is an American composer, flautist, and performer of live-electronic music.

David Johnson studied, among other places, at Harvard University (M.A. in composition 1964), with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and at the Cologne Courses for New Music in 1964–1965, 1965–1966, and 1966–1967 (, 198–204).

In 1966–67 he was an independent collaborator at the Electronic Studio of the WDR, where he assisted with the production of his electronic work Hymnen. He also operated the live-electronics in the first performances of the chamber-orchestra version of Stockhausen’s Mixtur (1967), and in the Darmstadt collaborative works directed by Stockhausen, in 1967 and Musik für ein Haus in 1968 (Gehlhaar 1968, 39; Ritzel 1970, 50; , 213 and 217).

In 1968 he was also instructor of electronic music at the Cologne Courses for New Music (, 206). From its formation in Cologne in 1968, he collaborated with the group formed by bass guitarist Holger Schüring (later known as Holger Czukay), keyboardist Irmin Schmidt, guitarist Michael Karoli and drummer Jaki Liebezeit in an experimental beat group that would later be known as Can. He left in 1969, disappointed at growing rock influences.

In 1970 he performed in a number of Stockhausen’s “process” works (, , ) at the German Pavilion of Expo 70, the Osaka World’s Fair (Kurtz 1992, 178; , 175–81). After Osaka, together with Johannes Fritsch and Rolf Gehlhaar, he founded in 1971 the Feedback Studio in Cologne and became a technical collaborator in the Studio for Electronic Music of the Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht.

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