David Hackbridge Johnson

David Hackbridge Johnson has composed numerous largely underexposed works, including more than a dozen symphonies as well as various keyboard, chamber, vocal, and choral works. He is also a performer active as a violinist, pianist, and vocalist in classical music, jazz, and folk-rock.

Johnson was born in Carshalton in south London in 1963. He began composing at age 11, but his education was largely oriented toward performing. Johnson studied violin, piano, singing, and conducting in his youth, finally enrolling at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London to study voice with Arthur Reckless. He took master classes in voice with John Carol Case and conducting with Colin Metters and <a href="spotify:artist:4SvNOuqLK2BsG3GsD0rROS">Norman del Mar</a>. At the Royal College of Music, Johnson studied singing with Mark Wildman. He holds degrees from that institution as well as the Trinity College of Music and the University of Surrey, Roehampton; at the latter, he studied with pianist Peter O'Hagan, musicologist Caroline Potter, and composer Michael Burnett. He continued to compose but gained little attention for this aspect of his activities, developing a personal style that took inspiration from such composers as <a href="spotify:artist:1iRxfXQfN3sjQhN7474FrC">Havergal Brian</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:0nJvyjVTb8sAULPYyA1bqU">Copland</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:46xXzoOdtD7SL2PTRq5irp">Janáček</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:5KNv9Vn1TSzUzMp5ay2jPO">Edmund Rubbra</a>, among others. Johnson began his career as a violinist in a theater orchestra. He formed the jazz group Constellation to perform his own compositions and arrangements, and he appeared as a drummer or violinist at the Montreux, Cheltenham, and Ealing jazz festivals, among others. Johnson also played violin and drums and made arrangements for the Latin jazz group Cana Dulce. He has issued several jazz albums, including the solo stride piano release Prisoner of Love, and has performed solo in most major British jazz venues. Johnson has appeared on violin and written arrangements for the folk-rock group <a href="spotify:artist:73XRWWG1RmRSruCxzM69iK">Grand Drive</a>.

Johnson began to attract attention as a classical composer in 2001 when he was short-listed by the Society for the Promotion of New Music. That brought Johnson new performance opportunities; in December of 2002, his orchestral work Two Clerical Episodes was performed by the South Bank Symphony Orchestra, and the following year, his string orchestra work Lament for Himbert Blanke was performed in Wolverhampton, England, by the Goldberg Ensemble. He has composed more than 20 symphonies and tone poems, chamber music, choral music, and many songs, including settings in the French, German, Old Norse, Elamite, and Ancient Babylonian languages as well as English. Johnson uses the opus number convention to designate his published works, which by the late 2010s numbered about 400. Several of his compositions have been recorded, including on David Hackbridge Johnson, Orchestral Music, Vol. 2, by the <a href="spotify:artist:5xBSsPfZtPItmn72C2EHVf">Royal Scottish National Orchestra</a>. ~ James Manheim, Rovi