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Terre Johnson

Distinguished Composer & Conductor

Based In:

Morrow, GA

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Terre Johnson's Bio

Terre Johnson holds degrees in choral music from Troy University, Auburn University, and Florida State University, and serves as Chair of Performing and Visual Arts at Clayton State University. His career has included notable success as both a composer and conductor of choral and orchestral music, teaching in public middle and high schools and public and private colleges and universities, and serving in church music positions.

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As a conductor, Dr. Johnson founded and conducted the acclaimed Birmingham Chamber Chorus and the Southeastern Chamber Orchestra. A Life Member of the American Choral Directors Association, he has served as National Chair for Music in Worship and is currently National Coordinator for Lifelong Singing, providing resources and advocacy for those who conduct in houses of worship or community chorus settings. In addition, he serves as Editor for ACDA’s regular publication for Music in Worship, the "Hallelujah, Amen!" extended column that appears quarterly in the Choral Journal. For several years Dr. Johnson was Conductor-in-Residence for Midamerica Productions in New York and Music Director of the New Jersey Choral Society. His fourteen concerts in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall have met with critical success. In 2004 the New York Times lauded the “robust choral sound” of the chorus he prepared for a concert conducted by Midamerica Productions General Director Peter Tiboris, featuring Metropolitan Opera Soprano Angela Brown, and narrated by Academy Award Winner Olympia Dukakis. While in New York Dr. Johnson became closely associated with composer and conductor John Rutter, and in addition to sharing the concert stage, traveled around the country to prepare over 100 choruses for performances with him. While at Florida State University, he served as accompanist and rehearsal assistant to Robert Shaw, who visited the campus frequently to conduct concerts, as well as accompanying for conductors Colleen Kirk, Andre Thomas and Clayton Krehbiel, and guest conductors Harold Decker, Larry Wyatt, Maurice Casey, Morris Hayes, Rhonda Fleming, Hugh Thomas, Kenneth Jennings, Doug McEwen and Morton Gould.

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Dr. Johnson is receiving increasing acclaim as a composer. His sacred compositions are published by Morning Star Music Publishers, Choristers Guild and Southeastern Music. He has conducted the premieres of four extended works under the auspices of Midamerica Productions: "Missa Femina" for women’s chorus and orchestra, and “The Wind” for mixed chorus and orchestra in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall; and "Song of the Captive" and “Story of a Soul” in Florence, Italy. In the premiere of “The Wind” he had the honor of sharing the podium with his daughter, Cameron Johnson Weiler. His arrangement of the hymn "Come, Ye Disconsolate" is a best seller, and has been recorded by the St. Olaf Choir and the Baylor University A Cappella Choir. Other recent premieres have included a commission by the Turtle Creek Chorale in Dallas, an extended work for chorus and orchestra presented by the Masterworks Choir of Florence, SC, a series of choral/orchestral Christmas pieces for the Georgia Boy Choir, and multi-year choral/orchestral commissions for the Luther College “Christmas at Luther” broadcasts.

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In 2006 Terre Johnson served as Guest Conductor and Assistant Artistic Director for the Voices in the House Festival in the Sydney Opera House, and held similar positions in the International Haydn Festival 2009 in Vienna, and in the International Festival of the Aegean in Greece in 2010. His choirs have received invitations to perform at ACDA conferences, and performed in the Warsaw Mozart Festival in 1995, and in the Rome Easter Festival in 1999. His conducting and administrative skills are in demand, and in recent years he has conducted three opera productions for Samford University, two music theatre productions and an opera production at Troy University, and two concerts with the Huxford Symphony Orchestra of the University of Alabama, and he has served the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra as its Managing Director.

Terre Johnson has three children. Daughter Cameron Weiler is Choral Director at Enterprise High School in Alabama, daughter Kelly Baxley is an elementary school teacher in Port St. Joe, Florida, and son Christopher is a medical resident at the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

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