Albert, Donnie Ray
Capuzzi, Giuseppe Antonio
Carrettin, Zachary
CSUN Wind Ensemble
Drew, James
Estes, Steve
Ewer, Gregory
Floyd, Carlisle
Goldsmith, Kenneth
Harlow, Russell
Hogan, Moses
Jensen, John
Johnson, Hall
King, Terry
LaMotte, Adam
Lloyd, Jr., Charles
Mirecourt Trio
Morgan, Leslie
Owens, Robert
Reale, Paul
Ritacca, Jo Anne
Tarragó, Leticia
Smith, Hale
Vandervelde, Janika
Whitwell, David

HALL JOHNSON
(1888-1970)

Cinnabar Recordings:
In Recital

Biography by Marva Griffin Carter excerpted from the International Dictionary of Black Composers, editor Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., under the auspices of the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College, Chicago:

Hall Johnson had an enviable reputation as an interpreter of the African-American folk song, having achieved remarkable success in arranging them, teaching them to others, and composing original works based on them. He coached hundreds of singers and conductors, among them Marian Anderson, Camilla Williams, Shirley Verrett, Andrew Frierson, Leonard De Paur, Jester Hairston, and John Motley. Virtually every significant black singer has performed his solo compositions and arrangements.

Johnson grew up in Athens, Georgia, where he regularly heard the singing of family and church members who had been slaves. His father, the Reverend William Decker Johnson of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, introduced him to solfège, and to French and German phonetics. Johnson studied piano with his oldest sister, Mary Elizabeth, and began to compose little tunes. He was inspired to play the violin after hearing violinist Joseph Douglass in concert . . . He also demonstrated talent as a painter and held the art of painting in high esteem.

After Johnson’s father became president of Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina, he matriculated there, 1905-08. By 1910, he had earned a bachelor of arts degree at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied with Hugh A. Clark, and while in Philadelphia, he studied with Frederick Hahn, formerly first violinist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and founder of the Hahn School of Music. In 1923-24, he studied composition with Percy Goetschius at the New York Institute of Musical Art (Julliard School of Music). . .

In 1923, Johnson formed and played in the Negro String Quartet; its members were Felix Weir, first violin, Arthur Boyd, second violin, Johnson, viola, and Marion Cumbo, cello. They concertized principally along the eastern seaboard, and in addition to the standard European repertoire, they played works by contemporary black composers. The quartet appeared with Marian Anderson and accompanied Roland Hayes in a Carnegie Hall recital in 1925.

In the midst of the burgeoning Harlem Renaissance of art, music, and letters, Johnson organized the Hall Johnson Choir in 1925. The group sang at the funeral service for Florence Mills on November 1, 1927, and appeared subsequently in performances at Town Hall, Lewisohn Stadium with the New York Philharmonic, the International Festival of Fine Arts in Berlin (September 5-30, 1951), and at many other prestigious venues.

With the success of his choir, Johnson’s professional career as an instrumentalist essentially ended and was supplanted by his extensive and varied choral activities. He was engaged as music director of the Broadway and movie productions of Green Pastures, by Marc Connelly. For it he wrote the musical arrangements of 23 Negro spirituals and contributed two original compositions.

Despite the Great Depression of the 1930's, Johnson’s folk opera, Run, Little Chillun!, ran for four months on Broadway in 1933. . . Johnson often served as an adviser for films about African- Americans, and his choir appeared on the sound tracks of several films from the 1930's and 1940's.

Johnson organized many other choruses during his lifetime, including the Festival Negro Chorus of New York City, which was made up of 300 voices. In 1946, this chorus performed Johnson’s Son of Man, an Easter cantata, at New York’s City Center. . . and two years later, at Carnegie Hall.

A foremost exponent of the Negro spiritual, Johnson placed spirituals into three general classes: devotional songs, episodic songs, and songs of religious experiences. . . Musically, Johnson’s compositions and arrangements make use of intentional alterations of pitch, heterophony that approximates collective improvisation, counterpoint, a pulsing overall rhythm combined with varying subordinate rhythms, cracked tones, low rumbles, comic effects, and sounds without words. The character of the melodies and texts dictated the use of these devices.

Johnson met his tragic death in an apartment fire on April 30, 1970. Ironically, many of his compositions use fire as the subject matter, including the 1959 operetta entitled Fi-yer!

Copyright 1999. From International Dictionary of Black Composers, Volume 2, editor Samuel A. Floyd, Jr. Reproduced by kind permission of Routledge/Taylor & Francis Books, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Hall Johnson has been the recipient of many honors and awards, including: University of Pennsylvania, Simon Haessler Prize, 1910; Holstein Prize, 1925, 1927; Harmon Award, 1930; Philadelphia Academy of Music, honorary doctorate, 1924; Citation from the City of New York, 1962; City of New York, Handel Award, 1970; induction into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, posthumously 1975.

Photo by Carl Van Vechten
Library of Congress