Dr. William Johnston

VIOLA

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William Johnston leads a varied career as a violist and educator. Based in Atlanta, he has appeared throughout the country in solo and chamber music performances. He is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of Classical Revolution ATL, an organization dedicated to presenting live performances of chamber music in atypical venues such as coffee shops, bars, and clubs in metro Atlanta. William is in demand as an orchestral musician, serving as principal violist of The Atlanta Opera and performing with numerous orchestras in the southeast. He has participated in many summer festivals, including Aspen, Kent/Blossom, and Sarasota, and is currently principal violist of the Utah Festival Opera.

William is equally committed to music education. He is a registered Suzuki teacher, and completed long-term teacher training in books 1-4 with Kimberly Meier-Sims at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In addition to the Atlanta Music Project, he is also a faculty member at the Georgia Academy of Music, maintains a private studio, and is very active as clinician in the Atlanta area.

William is a native of Sarasota, Florida and graduated from Pine View School in Osprey. Beginning music lessons with the piano at age four, he later studied the viola with Dorothy Stahler, Alison Heydt, Victoria Chiang, James Dunham, and Robert Vernon. He is a graduate of the Peabody Institute and Rice University, and is the first violist to receive the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music.