Godfrey, Ill. – On Saturday, Oct. 29, the Alton Symphony will perform a recently revised edition of Emmy award winning composer Lee Johnson’s orchestral tribute to the Grateful Dead, “Dead Symphony,” with Johnson himself in attendance.
In conjunction with the concert, Johnson will give a lecture at the Ringhausen Music Building at L&C at 4 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 28, for local students and faculty interested in orchestral composition for concert, film, and television. The lecture will be open to all interested local college students, high school students, music instructors, professional and amateur musicians and composers.
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The Dead Symphony, Johnson’s Symphony No. 6, will be performed in the Ann Whitney Olin Theatre inside Lewis and Clark’s Hatheway Cultural Center starting at 7 p.m. The concert will also feature Haydn’s Symphony No. 22, and Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 performed by local pianist Sunghee Hinners.
Lee Johnson is the Fuller E. Callaway professor of music composition, music technology & film music for LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. He has composed a large body of works that include nine innovative symphonies, two nontraditional operas, concertos, musicals, cantatas, chamber music, vocal and choral works, and is an award winning composer in the genre of symphonic film.
The Dead Symphony (Symphony No. 6) was premiered by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to rave reviews and enjoyed substantial media coverage that included: Good Morning America, NPR’s Weekend Edition, The Washington Post and the Washington Times, the Associated Press, Reuter’s News Agency, along with dozens of radio, magazine, podcast and newspaper interviews.
Johnson has conducted and produced numerous recording sessions with world renowned orchestras at the famed Abbey Road Studios in London, Mosfilm Studios in Moscow and other leading recording studios. His conducting credits include recordings with The London Symphony Orchestra, The Russian National Orchestra, The London Session Orchestra, The Taliesin Orchestra, and many others. Recordings of his compositions can be found on the Universal Classics, Warner Bros., CCn’C Records, and Deutsche Grammophon labels.
Johnson has received an Emmy Award, was named Georgia Artist of the Year, has charted on Billboard, has won The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) award and ADDY Award from the American Advertising Federation.
For more information on this event, please contact the L&C Music Department at (618) 468-4731.
