KIRSTEN JOHNSON

Piano

‘Johnson plays with nuance and color; the recording is rich and resonant’ (American Record Guide, 1 March 2004). 

 ‘Kirsten Johnson's loving mastery of this music and skilful, nuanced pianism are a delight.’ (Classics Today, 26 August 2003)

 Anglo-American pianist Kirsten Johnson is noted for her innate musicianship and her ability to realise the intent of composers from every musical period.  With a repertoire that stretches from the pre-Baroque to the recently composed, Kirsten Johnson enjoys playing the standard repertoire as well as lesser-known works for piano.  Her recent CD, Këngë: Albanian Piano Music, has had critics marvelling at the charm and accessibility of these Albanian piano miniatures.  Soon to be released, Kirsten Johnson has just recorded two CDs of nineteenth-century Swiss piano music, featuring the complete works of Heinrich Schulz-Beuthen and two sets of pieces by Hermann Goetz. 

 After receiving her Master of Music degree in piano performance from the University of North Texas, Kirsten Johnson studied in Vienna at the Hochschule für Musik under a Rotary International Foundation Scholarship. While in Vienna, Kirsten Johnson first visited Albania and developed a fascination with the piano music of this country. She then researched Albanian piano music extensively for her Doctor of Musical Arts, which she received from the University of Missouri in 1997.  Her thesis, A Survey of Albanian Piano Literature, is available through UMI of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Dr Johnson had a highly successful tour to Albania last year, with her concert in Tirana a gala event which was broadcast on national television.

 Kirsten Johnson has just given the world première of Raymond Head’s Of Birds and Bells at a concert held at the Royal Academy of Music in London in memory of her mentor, Ronald Smith.  Her current recording project is a second CD of Albanian pieces.  Dr Johnson has been a part-time lecturer at the University of Cambridge, but now devotes herself to performing and recording.

www.kirstenjohnsonpiano.com

REVIEWS of Kirsten Johnson’s Këngë: Albanian Piano Music (released 2003):  [Complete reviews available on the web at www.guildmusic.com/reviews/rev7257z.htm]  

 American Record Guide, 1 March 2004

 ‘…Kirsten Johnson … plays this music with loving care and wrote the authoritative notes; …do expect limpid melody, haunting modal harmony, folkloric atmosphere, and rhythmic vitality.  Johnson plays with nuance and color; the recording is rich and resonant.’

BBC Music Magazine, 1 June 2003

‘…this is a surprisingly enjoyable collection. Albania's composers turn out to have been a capable and thoroughly musicianly lot who turned limitation to advantage and worked within their narrow confines with skill and grace and inventiveness.
The toccatas of Feim Ibrahimi and Arian Avrazi are invigorating works, much else has charm or carries elegiac conviction, and the haunting and impressive Four Piano Pieces of Cesk Zadeja (1927-97), at least, introduce a composer I'd like to hear more of. Kirsten Johnson, who has made an intensive study of Albania's music over the past decade, expounds all this repertoire with manifest sympathy and skill. An unexpected delight.’

Classics Today, 26 August 03

‘Kirsten Johnson's loving mastery of this music and skilful, nuanced pianism are a delight. What is more, she's able to find just the right tempo, sound world, dynamic range, and character that allows each piece to emerge as an individual entity, from her exquisite legato in Zadeja's lyrical writing to the Ibrahimi Toccata's piquant fingerwork. … Does Johnson plan a sequel?’

CD Review, hosted by Andrew McGregor, Radio 3, 29 March 2003

[Played Nina-Nana by  J. Papadhimitri in entirety] ‘The pianist Kirsten Johnson has spent years studying Albanian piano music, and she's gathered some of the fruits of her knowledge onto this single disc. There's some really charming music here, which you won't find anywhere else.’

Music Web, 30 April 2003

‘This folk-exotica is sympathetically played by Kirsten Johnson who also wrote the excellent notes. I wonder if she is planning a second Albanian volume. If not perhaps she and Guild might consider doing the same for the piano music of Bulgaria and Rumania.

This disc has the potential to become extremely popular. I hope that the likes of Classic FM in the UK will do more than take note of it.’

TEMPO :  A Quarterly Review of Modern Music, Volume 57, July 2003

‘I have to confess that I knew nothing of Albanian music until I heard this disc and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. All the music here dates from the 20th century and all of it shows profound folk influence, not without good reason.… all [of] these pieces are superbly played by Kirsten Johnson and well recorded: this is a repertoire well worth exploring.’

The Times, 25 March 25 2003

‘…I played the title track - the word means song - and felt the old stone heart softening at a rippling folk-song setting from the pen of Kozma Lara. Simplicity of thought dominates. …The pieces by Cesk Zadeja have more substance and grit than most. Throughout the disc you can feel a kinship with Bartok, though none of the music can survive his competition, and in bulk its triviality fatigues. But I was glad to have a door opened, and Johnson's performances, warmly recorded, offer their own attractions.’

Kirsten Johnson