Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson (Colorado, 1939) is a composer who trained in several American universities and was a student of Morton Feldman. Johnson composes in the minimalist tradition. It is a term that he was the first to apply to music in an article published in The Village Voice in 1972 when he was a music critic.
His musical structures, which are of a formalist type, usually depend on logical sequences in which he explores procedures of accumulation, counting and isorhythm – procedures which have earned him the title of the founder of logical music. Be that as it may, the extensive use of musical compositions and text has led him to produce pieces where humour emerges, due to a touch of the absurd, since the music is presented as if he were giving a course on music itself.
Johnson is best known for his operas: The Four-Note Opera (1972), after almost 30 years, continues to be performed in many countries; and Riemannoper has been staged more than 15 times since its premiere in Bremen in 1988. The last, Trigonometry, was premiered in Hamburg in 1997. Other works include Rational Melodies, Music for 88 and Failing: A Very Difficult Piece for Solo String Bass. Perhaps his greatest work is the Bonhoeffer Oratorio, composed for orchestra, chorus and soloists, with German texts by the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This two-hour work was premiered in Maastricht
(Netherlands) in September 1996. Its premiere in Germany took place in Berlin in 1998 and in the USA in May 2000.
Johnson has also composed numerous works for radio. In 1989 the Apollohuis publishing house published The Voice of New, a collection of articles of musical criticism written during the period 1971-1982. Self-Similar Melodies, published by Editions 75 in 1996, is the first theoretical compilation of the systems used by Tom Johnson in his work. Tom Johnson received the national award “Victoires de la musique 2000” for his work Kientzy Loops and was curator of the exhibition Música silente at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid in 2001. Since 1983 he has been living in Paris.