Geir Johnson (13 June 1953 – 16 September 2021[1]) was a composer, writer and initiator of culture projects living atNesodden outsideOslo. He was born inFredrikstad, 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 spanned 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.[2]
Johnson studied musicology, philosophy and social sciences at theUniversity of Oslo andUniversity of Bergen, receiving his Ph.D. in 1983. He was visiting scholar at the CCRMA, Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics atStanford University in 1988-1889, and was invited as visiting composer to theRockefeller Foundation inBellagio, Italy, in 2010. As a composer, he was largely autodidact, having written more than 60 works for various ensembles, soloists and occasions.[3]
Geir Johnson was 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 theMinistry of Culture (Norway). From 1989 to 1995, he was President of Ny Musikk, the Norwegian section ofISCM, during which period the organization was also host to theISCM World Music Days in 1990. From 1998 to 2009, he was in charge as Artistic and Managing Director of theUltima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival, of which he was also one of the founders. As part of this work he 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.[4]
Since 2003, he developedParkteatret, a multi-purpose concert hall with approximately 250 events a year, without public support; it is located in downtown Oslo.[5]
Since 2005, he was the founder of Transposition, a large-scale music cooperation and development project for twelve leading music institutions in Vietnam and Norway, and continued this work in the HEDDA Foundation, by contributing to build a new building for theGitameit Music school inYangon,Myanmar. Geir Johnson has lectured on central topics in 20th century music and arts at Nordic universities, academies and at international conferences around the world, as well as published essays, articles and reviews, on issues ranging from popular music research to the contemporary music scene and cultural politics, in approximately 100 journals, magazines and newspapers worldwide.[6]
He has received several grants and awards. In 2002, he was awarded the Fegersten Foundation Music Prize for his lifetime contribution to Norwegian music;[7] in 2015, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in Hanoi honored him with a medal for his contribution to the development of the Vietnamese music life.[8]
In 2015, Johnson edited the bookViet Nam Overtures, a collection of articles covering the history and development of Transposition.[9]
December 2016 saw Johnson being bestowed with Norwegian collecting society TONO´s Outreach Prize.[10]
Johnson has also been a board member for a number of Norwegian cultural institutions and organizations; as of 2015, he was serving as Chairman of the Board for Oslo’s multicultural MELA Festival and the classical music festival Valdres Sommersymfoni.[11]
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