Geir Johnson

Geir Johnson (born 1953), is a composer, writer and initiator of culture projects living at Nesodden outside Oslo. He was born in Fredrikstad, and received his first musical training as a soprano soloist in boys' choirs in Oslo, followed by music training in piano and singing, as well as choral conducting studies with Knut Nystedt. His own performance career spans from many years of choral conducting, via a short career as singer and keyboard player in a rock band, to performance artist in a multi-artist collective titled The TRASH Ensemble.

Johnson studied musicology, philosophy and social sciences at the University of Oslo and University of Bergen, receiving his Ph.D. in 1983. He was visiting scholar at the CCRMA, Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University in 1988-89, and was invited as visiting composer to the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, Italy, in 2010. As a composer he is largely autodidact, having written more than 60 works for various ensembles, soloists and occasions.

Geir Johnson has been active in the field of concert planning and management, first from the early 1980s at the Henie-Onstad Arts Centre in Oslo, later by establishing the BIT 20 Ensemble and the Music Factory festival in Bergen. In the early 1990s he was one of the founders of the contemporary music theatre company Opera Vest in Bergen, today named The Bergen National Opera, financed over the budget of the Ministry of Culture (Norway). From 1989 to 1995 he was President of Ny Musikk, the Norwegian section of ISCM, during which period the organization was also host to the ISCM World Music Days in 1990. From 1998-2009 he was in charge as Artistic and Managing Director of the Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival, of which he was also one of the founders. As part of this work he has also planned and co-developed music projects in many European countries, as one of the founding members of the festival network Réseau Varèse in 1999.

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