David C. Johnson

David C. Johnson (January 30, 1940, in Batavia, New York – October 28, 2021, in Basel) was an American composer, flautist, and performer of live electronic music. Life and career Johnson studied, among other places, at Harvard University (M.A. in composition 1964), with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and at the Cologne Courses for New Music in 1964–1965, 1965–1966, and 1966–1967. In 1966–1967, he was an independent collaborator at the Electronic Studio of the WDR, where he assisted Karlheinz Stockhausen with the production of his electronic work Hymnen. He also operated the live-electronics in the first performances of the chamber-orchestra version of Stockhausen’s Mixtur (1967), and in the Darmstadt collaborative works directed by Stockhausen, Ensemble in 1967 and Musik für ein Haus in 1968. In 1968, Johnson was instructor of electronic music at the Cologne Courses for New Music. From its formation in Cologne in 1968, he collaborated with the experimental beat group, later known as Can, formed by bass guitarist Holger Schüring (later known as Holger Czukay), keyboardist Irmin Schmidt, guitarist Michael Karoli and drummer Jaki Liebezeit. He left in 1969, disappointed at their growing ro