NEWS

The acclaimed new music ensemble Contemporaneous will give the world premiere of “Assembly Required” on January 23, 2020, at Roulette in Brooklyn. This new work for electric band will be paired with "Americans", written for the same instruments, but featuring the sampled voices of immigrants from China, Romania, and Afghanistan. In addition, Ashley Bathgate, Stephen Gosling, and Yoko Reikano Kimura will be joined by Johnson on guitar in a performance of "Up and Back".

"Mind Out of Matter" is available from Tzadik Records. Alarm Will Sound performs this 8 movement work featuring the ideas of philosopher Daniel C. Dennett, in a score built around his sampled voice. The piece is based on Dennett's book "Breaking The Spell (Religion as a Natural Phenomenon)", which examines the origins and evolution of religion, extending Darwinian principles into the realm of belief itself. Just as living organisms evolve in the physical environment, ideas and traditions compete within the virtual ecosystems of human minds and cultures. This work offers an alternative and celebratory vision of human consciousness arising naturally from the physical universe, with no need for supernatural forces.

RECENT PERFORMANCES

Alarm Will Sound performed "Mind Out of Matter" at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin on 4/5/19, and in St. Louis on 9/21/18.

Chicago's Fulcrum Point performed "Americans" in Chicago on 12/19/18.

Johnson performed "Up and Back" at the Japan Society in New York City on 10/5/18, with shamisen virtuoso Hidejiro Honjoh and members of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE).