PAUL JOHNSON
Associate Professor of Music
Music Theory & Composition
Ph.D. Princeton University, 1981
Office: 214 Crowley Hall
Telephone: (574) 631-5165
E-mail: Paul.G.Johnson.3@nd.edu
Paul Johnson received his compositional training at Northwestern University and Princeton University, where he studied with Claudio Spies and Milton Babbit. His works, particularly for dancers, have been performed across the United States. He has been the recipient of several grants and commissions; his Three Canonic Fanfares were commissioned by the inauguration of Edward Malloy as President of the University of Notre Dame. His tone poem for chamber orchestra, The Wild Swans at Coole was released in June, 2005 on Masterworks of the New Era, vol. 6, and his composition for soprano and orchestra, Spring in War-Time, will appear on ERM records in 2006.
Johnson also is a music theorist and has written on a variety of topics including the motets of Guillaume de Machaut, performance practice in Bach's keyboard music, Schoenberg's 12-tone technique, the wind music of Gustav Holst and the philosophy of William Morris, and Stravinsky's neo-classic music. He is currently completing a book on the philosophy and psychology of musical creativity entitled How Composers Learn. Johnson has been married since 1989 to Kathleen Pyne, a well-known scholar of American Art. They have one child, Nicholas.
