Kirsten Johnson

Specializing in performances and recordings of obscure American compositions, pianist Kirsten Johnson has also gained recognition as an expert on Albanian music. Born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, she completed a summa cum laude bachelor’s degree at Evangel University, the Assemblies of God-affiliated institution in Missouri. Graduate studies followed at the University of North Texas for a master’s degree and at the University of Missouri–Kansas City for a doctorate whose dissertation examined Albanian music. Additional training took her to Vienna’s Hochschule für Musik on a Rotary International Foundation Scholarship and to England, where she worked with Ronald Smith. In England she married, raised three children, established residence in the Oxford area in 1998, and acquired British citizenship in 2002. Beyond music she remained active in Britain’s Liberal Democrat Party until 2018, served as councillor for the Wheatley Division of Oxfordshire County, and holds the presidency of Fragile X International.

Her earliest albums, Këngë: Albanian Piano Music and Rapsodi: Albanian Piano Music, Vol. II, appeared on the Guild label during the 2000s. Guild has since released more than half of her more than twenty albums; several others have come from Centaur Records, while a pair on Nimbus presented the piano music of Dmitri Kabalevsky. Earlier releases also covered Heinrich Schulz-Beuthen and Hermann Goetz before Johnson concentrated chiefly on American repertoire. The initial outcome of that focus was a four-volume survey of Amy Beach’s complete piano music, the result of several years of research. In 2013 Delos issued her three-CD box set of Arthur Foote’s piano music, affording the composer a level of international attention he had not previously enjoyed. She has likewise documented works by the early American composers James Hewitt and Benjamin Carr. As a composer herself, Johnson has had pieces performed in Oxford, Brussels, London, New York, and Boston, including Union/Disunion (2017), which marked Britain’s departure from the European Union. Her 2022 Guild double album of Florence B. Price’s piano music contains thirty-six world-premiere recordings.