David Johnson (composer)

David C. Johnson , (born January 30, 1940 in Batavia , New York ), is an American composer , flautist , performer of electronic live music , teacher of electronic music and director of electronic studios , who has lived in Europe since 1964 .

Life

David Johnson studied at Harvard University (MA in composition 1964) and in Paris with Nadia Boulanger . In Cologne he took part in the Cologne courses for new music from 1964 to 1967 (Stockhausen 1971, 198-204).

1966-67, as a freelancer at the Cologne studio for electronic music of the WDR , he assisted Karlheinz Stockhausen in the production of the electronic work " Hymnen " and operated the live electronics for the first performances of the chamber music version of Stockhausen's work "Mixtur" ( 1967) and in the Darmstadt collaborations that Stockhausen directed: "Ensemble", 1967 and "Musik für ein Haus", 1968 (Gehlhaar 1968, 39; Ritzel 1970, 50; Stockhausen 1971, 213 and 217). In 1968 he was a lecturer in electronic music at the Cologne Courses for New Music (Stockhausen 1971, 206).

In 1968 David Johnson was a founding member of an experimental music group with bass guitarist Holger Schüring (later known as Holger Czukay ), keyboard player Irmin Schmidt , guitarist Michael Karoli and drummer Jaki Liebezeit , which became known under the name Can . He saw increasing rock influences as a limitation of musical freedom and quality and therefore ended the collaboration in 1969.

In 1970 he performed some “process compositions” by Stockhausen, Spiral , Pole and Expo in the German Pavilion of the World Exhibition in Osaka , Expo 70 (Kurtz 1992, 178; Stockhausen 1971, 175–81).

1970, to Osaka, the composers Johannes Fritsch , Rolf Gehlhaar and David Johnson founded the Feedback Studio in Cologne. In 1971 David Johnson was also a technical assistant at the 'Studio voor Electronic Muziek' at the Rijksuniversität Utrecht .

Also in 1971 he became a member of the Oeldorf Gruppe, a musician cooperative with Péter Eötvös , Mesías Maiguashca , Gaby Schumacher (cello) and Joachim Krist (viola), whose series of events "Oeldorfer Sommernachtsmusik" ran until 1975. The music performances took place in a barn on the farm in Kürten , which the group lived in (Kurtz 1992, 200).

With Helmut Lachenmann , he was the coordinator of the composition studio for the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt. Until 1975 he remained the technical director of the Feedback Studio and until 1984 he was the director of the electronic studio of the Music Academy of the City of Basel . Today he lives in Basel, where he has been married to the sound artist Bernadette Johnson since 1984.

Compositions

• Three Pieces for string quartet (1966)
• Where we live , electronic music for the documentary by Kazimierz Karabasz (1967)
• TeleFun , Electronic Music (1968)
• Ton-Antiton , Electronic Music (1968)
• Prorganica , sound installation (1970)
• Organica I – IV , sound installations (1970–72)
• Triangles , for flute, clarinet, cello, and 3 ring modulators (1975)
• Ars Subtilior Electrica , electronic music, realized in the Electronic Studio of the Music Academy Basel (1977)
• Windfall fruit , for tape, live electronics, slide projection and accompanying events (1984)
• Of burning a candle , for tape and slide projection (1985)
• Captured Fruits , Cybernetic Sound Space (1989/90)
• Wisdom of the Earth , for tape, live electronics and slide projection (1990)

literature

• Gehlhaar, Rolf. 1968. Concerning the composition of the ensemble: Composition Studio Karlheinz Stockhausen, International Summer Courses for New Music, Darmstadt 1967 . Darmstadt Contributions to New Music 11th Ed .: Ernst Thomas. Mainz: B. Schott's sons. Text in German and English.
• Kurtz, Michael. 1992. Stockhausen: A Biography . Translated from the German by Richard Toop. London: Faber and Faber.
• Johnson, David. 1972. “The Organica Story.” Feedback papers 7th Reprint in Feedback Papers 1–16 , pp. 168-77.
• Morawska-Büngeler, Marietta. 1988. Swinging electrons: A documentation about the studio for electronic music of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne 1951–1986 . Cologne-Rodenkirchen: PJ Tonger Musikverlag.
• Pinion, Fred. 1970. Music for a house: Karlheinz Stockhausen composition studio, international summer courses for new music, Darmstadt 1968 . Darmstadt Contributions to New Music 12. Ed .: Ernst Thomas. Mainz: B. Schott's sons.
• Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1971. Texts for Music 3 (1963–1970). Ed .: Dieter Schnebel. Cologne: Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg.