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• Soprano Karen Johnson is summering at Tanglewood The Changing Scene Soprano Karen Johnson is summering at Tanglewood For soprano Karen Johnson it's déja vu all over again. Chairperson of the Department of Music at Dillard University in New Orleans, Johnson has a doctorate in music from the University of Michigan and has received first place honors in several musical competitions. She also is featured in two recently released recordings, "Artsongs of Black American Composers" and "The New Negro Spiritual." But here she is in a dormitory room at Miss Hall’s School with a roomie, institutional food, bull sessions and study, study, study. And she couldn’t be happier. Johnson is this year's winner of the Country Curtains Fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Institute, and is a marvelous amalgamation of brains, beauty and talent. A native of Goldsboro, N.C., Johnson sang in her church choir but was never a lead singer in any of her high school musical productions. People did comment on how good looking she was so she entered a contest for Miss Black Teenage World of North Carolina and won. She was a semi-finalist in the national competition and sang as part of the talent competition. Singing, however, was not one of her high priorities. With her family's encouragement, she enrolled at the University of North Carolina and four years later graduated with a degree in computer programming and ergonomic office design. She got a job in the computer field at a big company in Milwaukee but was then trained as a fine jewelry buyer and did that for four years. She began singing in a local gospel group and shortly after joined the Bike Across America tour. This was where her life changed. After a concert in Michigan, a woman approached her and asked if she might be interested in "studying music." The woman brought her to the associate dean of the University of Michigan School of Music, Dr. Willis Patterson, and she sang for him. He asked her to do a formal audition for the school and she was admitted as a student in 1991. When she graduated with a bachelor of music degree, Dr. Patterson invited her to lunch. "I think you should go on for your masters," he said. When she received her masters, Dr. Patterson invited her to lunch. "I think you should go on for your doctorate," he told her. After her doctorate, she took a job as director of choral activities at Alcorn State College in Mississippi, and one year later she moved on to Dillard University where "I like what I'm doing, like the students, and really like New Orleans." Why did she want to come here in the first place? "I was looking for a program for advanced students so I could perform more," she said. "I also wanted to work with people of stature and there are many of them in the program and teaching staff. There are something like 12 sopranos in the program, and it is so thrilling to perform with them." She is most excited about singing in composer Osvaldo Golijov's opera, "Ainadamar," particularly because soprano Dawn Upshaw sings the lead. The opera describes the execution of Spanish poet and playwright Garcia Lorca during the Spanish civil war as seen through the eyes of a famed Spanish actress. The opera is a joint production of the BSO, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. For Johnson the most exciting part is that in October she will repeat her role in a production in New York and in February will do it again in Los Angeles. Johnson has always been a hometown girl and one of the most gratifying things for her at Tanglewood is that "I am singing to an audience that doesn't know me as a person and is receiving me so well. Many local people come to the classes and performances here and it so wonderful to walk down the street in Lenox and have people comment on how much they like my work. "I also signed up for a host family and am so lucky in the people who have taken me under their wings. They come to all the performances and have shown me around the beautiful Berkshires. They've even had me to dinner." When Tanglewood ends, Johnson goes back to Dillard University in New Orleans and her students and her classes and her regular life. "But I really would like to come back here," she said. "I really would.” |
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