Lian Records

Ivan Johnson is on the front lines of the progressive music scene in the United States. Mr. Johnson is head of the jazz program at Oakwood High School in Los Angeles, where he has taken a program of 6 kids and one band and turned it into a program with 50 kids and 4 bands in addition to a jazz theory, composition, and arranging program. He is also Music Coordinator for the CAP program, a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading the ideas of artistic freedom to students all over Los Angeles. He co-founded the Academy of Creative Education, a school which promotes socially equal music education and strives to develop the complete musician inside each child, exposing them to all aspects of music and to as many styles and genres as possible, so that they see no limits to their creative possibilities. Recently Mr. Johnson has been the Assistant Music Director for the world premiere of the critically acclaimed opera "The Peach Blossom Fan," and was an Artist In Residence at Stanford University, performing music by Brian Fernihough.

Mr. Johnson began his performance career on contrabass in 1998, winning multiple awards from IAJE and other festivals in California. He completed his BFA degree at California Institute of the Arts in 2003, where he studied chamber music, jazz, composition, theory and arranging. He has studied contrabass with Charlie Haden, Darek Oles, and Peter Rofe; arranging and composition with Michael Pisaro, Marc Lowenstein and Mark Menzies; and Baroque music with Allen Vogel and Tisha Goldstein. He has also worked closely with Larry Koonse, Dave Roitstein, and Joe LaBarbera.

Mr. Johnson has performed all over the United States with an eclectic group of ensembles, and recently made his solo debut at the 2003 Athens Music Festival in Athens, Georgia. As a musician on the progressive music scene he has premiered music by Marc Lowenstein, Vinny Golia, Mark Menzies, Anne LeBaron, Michael Pisaro, James Tenney, Kris Tiner, and Jason Mears. Mr. Johnson’s current projects include the MTKJ Quartet - a group reinventing the concepts and ideas behind jazz improvisation, Tango Nuevo - a group focused on original new tango music, the Lian Ensemble - a classical Persian group which streches the boundaries of traditional Iranian music, and the Vinny Golia Quintet and Large Ensemble.