Erica Johnson

Erica Johnson is a Boston-based organist, keyboardist and church musician. Her regular activities include playing for and organizing hundreds of church services annually, directing adult and children’s choirs, teaching a robust studio of organ students, performing concerts, and freelance accompanying. She is the Adjunct Instructor of Organ for the Master of Sacred Music degree in the School of Theology at Boston University.

Erica joins the faculty of BU from Wellesley College, where she has served as College Organist and Instructor of Organ and Harpsichord since 2019. At Wellesley she has grown the organ studio to an enthusiastic group of 12 organ students in addition to directing the Organ Club, which brings together organists and organ enthusiasts on campus to play and pump the unique and historical wind system of the chapel organ. In addition to her position at Wellesley, Erica has taught at the UNC School of the Arts, Salem College, and the Oberlin Conservatory, and she designed and taught the graduate course in organ literature at the Eastman School of Music for two years during her doctoral studies.

As a church musician, Erica enjoys working for churches of many denominations and worship styles. It is important to her that music ministry demonstrates not only musical leadership, spiritual awareness and personal management skills but also musical professionalism and an understanding of the relevance of the organ in a changing liturgical environment. Through her personal experience working with volunteer parish musicians and her expansive knowledge of the repertoire, she is very successful in the academic, artistic, and sacred sphere of the organ. Erica currently serves as Director of Liturgy and Music at Sacred Heart Parish in Newton, MA. She has held many church positions over the years, including as Organ Scholar at the Memorial Church of Harvard University from 1999-2001 (accompanying the University Choir and playing for services). She has been selected as a judge for the panels of the Boston AGO Chapter Competition, the Arthur Poister Competition, and the Boston Bach International Organ Competition.

Erica is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory and Oberlin College (BM in organ and BA in economics), the New England Conservatory (MM), and the Eastman School of Music (DMA), studying with Haskell Thomson, William Porter, and Hans Davidsson. With a generous grant from the Beebe Fund for Musicians, she studied in North Germany for two years at the Hochschule für Musik in Bremen with Harald Vogel. Those years yielded two honors: the 2004 International Arp Schnitger Prize awarded by the Arp Schnitger Gesellschaft for promoting the legacy of the organ builder, and also two performance awards during the 2002 Norddeutsche Rundfunk (NDR) Musikpreis, held on the instruments in Basedow, Stade-St. Wilhadi, and Norden-Ludgerikirche.