Evan Johnson (b. 1980) is an American composer whose music focuses on the physical and bodily underpinnings of instrumental performance, extreme notational situations, and the structural potential of conflicting repetitive and canonic structures.  He received his Ph.D. in composition from the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he studied with David Felder as a Presidential Fellow; other teachers include Johannes Schöllhorn, Chaya Czernowin, Richard Barrett and Brian Ferneyhough.  A 2002 graduate from Yale University, Johnson has been invited to numerous composition seminars and festivals in the USA, Canada and Europe.

The recipient of a 2011 Meet the Composer Commissioning Music/USA commission, Johnson also received a 2010 Aaron Copland Award and 2009 Carlos Surinach Commission from BMI and the Concert Artists Guild.  Other awards incude those from ASCAP, BMI, Columbia University (2006 Joseph H. Bearns Prize), the Rhode Island Foundation (2008 Robert and Margaret MacColl Johnson Fellowship in Composition), the Rhode Island State Council for the Arts, the Society for New Music, and Yale University, among others.  In 2011 he will hold residencies at Copland House and the Millay Colony for the Arts.

His music has been performed throughout North America, Europe and beyond by ensembles such as ELISION, ensemble mosaik, Ensemble SurPlus, EXAUDI, 175 East, the Quatuor Bozzini, the New London Chamber Choir, the Art Ensemble NRW, the Cantus Ensemble, and the Society for New Music; pianists Ian Pace, Mark Knoop and Sebastian Berweck; flutist Richard Craig; clarinetist Gareth Davis; and soloists from the National Symphony Orchestra, among others.  His work has been programmed at international festivals of contemporary music, including the Darmstadt Ferienkurse, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Klangwerkstatt Berlin, Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäße Musik, Acht Brücken (Cologne), the Spitalfields Festival, the Ensemblia Festival, and others.  Current and upcoming projects include works for nine instruments (for dal niente, to be premiered at Darmstadt in July 2012); small vocal ensemble (commissioned by EXAUDI for their tenth anniversary); for soprano and cello  (his fifth work for ELISION); for piccolo (L'art de toucher le clavecin, 1, for Richard Craig); for guitar (for Paul Bowman); for three voices (for EXAUDI and ekmeles); and for guitar, bassoon and cello (for Magnus Andersson, Pascal Gallois and Rohan de Saram).

Recordings of his work are available or forthcoming on the HCR, Metier, and Mode labels.

Also active as a writer on music, Johnson has contributed to Tempo, Contemporary Music Review, Music Theory Spectrum, GroveMusic Online, and NewMusicBox, and provided the booklet essay for Peter Ablinger’s 33-127 on Mode Records and for a disc of works by Aaron Cassidy on NEOS (forthcoming).

From 2007 to 2010, Johnson was a postdoctoral teaching associate in music theory and composition at Northeastern University, in Boston.  He currently resides in Arlington, MA.

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