John Paul Johnson

Director of Graduate Studies, Director of Choral Activities

John Paul Johnson is Director of Graduate Studies, Director of Choral Activities, and Professor of Music at the University of Kansas. As Graduate Director, he serves as the administrator for applicants, masters and doctoral students, and faculty within the performance, music theory/composition, and musicology divisions. As Director of Choral Activities, Johnson conducts the acclaimed Chamber Choir, teaches graduate choral literature, advises the graduate choral program in choral conducting performance, and serves as the administrator of the choral program.

Before joining the KU faculty in 2002, Johnson served as the Director of Choral Activities at Texas State University – San Marcos for fifteen years. His teaching career began as the choral and general music specialist at Lampeter-Strasburg High School in suburban Lancaster, PA. During his tenure at all three of these positions, the programs have tripled in participation by singers, number of ensembles, addition of staff, and budget and generous donations to support the efforts of students and faculty.

Under his direction, Johnson’s choirs have sung at the conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, the Organization of American Kodaly Educators, Kansas Music Educators Association, Texas Music Educators Association, and Pennsylvania Music Educators Association. He has been a conductor-in-residence at the Trinity College of Music in London and at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, Poland. Johnson will be the featured conductor at a concert honoring Morten Lauridsen in the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles in November 2009. He has served as a conductor, clinician, or adjudicator for more than 600 events throughout the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean. His ensembles have toured throughout Europe and the eastern, southwestern, and western United States.

Johnson serves as chair of the college and university division of Repertoire and Standards Committee for the American Choral Directors Association. He has been viewed as a leader in contemporary choral literature by commissioning several new works by young composers each year to be performed by KU choirs.

A graduate of Westminster College (PA) and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Johnson has been the recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Mentor award at the University of Kansas, the Texas State University Teaching Award of Honor, and the Distinguished Alumni Lecturer award from Westminster College.