Trent Johnson (4)

Organist, composer, pianist and conductor. He is the Organist and Assistant Director of Music of the Unitarian Church of All Souls in New York City and is the Music Director of the Oratorio Singers of Westfield, New Jersey. The Oratorio Singers perform the great choral masterworks with professional soloists and with members of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. He is a graduate of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and The Juilliard School, NYC. His organ instructors have included John Weaver, Donald Sutherland, Peggy Haas-Howell, and Glenn Carow. In addition he has studied piano with Walter Hautzig, Glenn Carow and Edgar Cosimi. Major conducting influences have come from his work with Frederik Prausnitz, Dr. David A. Weadon and Norman Scribner of the Choral Arts Society of Washington DC. Mr. Johnson was formerly the Assistant Organist of the Brick Presbyterian Church in NYC. He is an organist at Radio City Music Hall in NYC, were he plays the "Mighty Wurlitzer" organ for the Christmas Spectacular Show. He was also chosen to play the "think music" for the television show Celebrity Jeopardy! taped at Radio City Music Hall in 2006. In January 2007 the NY Theater Organ Society invited him to give a joint organ recital on "The Mighty Wurlitzer" organ at Radio City Music Hall with organist Bob Maidhof. As a composer, Mr. Johnson has written numerous works for various soloists, ensembles and musical organizations. Among them are chamber music, choral works, art songs, works for organ and piano, cantatas, concertos, orchestral works and an opera. As conductor of the Oratorio Singers and Orchestra of Westfield, NJ, Mr. Johnson has led this organization in the Requiems of Mozart, Brahms, Verdi and Faure, Haydn’s Die Schopfung, Mendelssohn’s Symphony #2 Lobgesang, Elgar’s The Music Makers, Verdi’s Four Sacred Pieces, Bach’s B minor Mass and St. John Passion, Kodaly’s Missa Brevis, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Poulenc's Gloria, Dello Joio’s To St. Cecelia, Beethoven's Christ on the Mount of Olives, Handel’s Messiah, Israel in Egypt, Coronation Anthems and Judas Maccabeaus, among many other great works. Mr. Johnson has conducted the Oratorio Singers in several premieres of his own works.