Johnson, the son of C. Douglas and Janice Johnson, will participate in the Double Bass Institute (one week) and Orchestra (six weeks) at the Camp. He received a Merit Scholarship from Interlochen and an Azira G. Hill Scholarship to assist in funding this developmental opportunity.
Johnson, a freshman at Collins Hill High School, began playing the double bass as a sixth grader at Creekland Middle School. In the seventh grade he was selected for the GMEA All-State Orchestra and was named first chair in the eighth and ninth grades. Corban played in the Kendall Youth Orchestra in Gwinnett County as a seventh grader. To challenge himself in the eighth grade, he served as the principal bassist for his school honor orchestra, the Gwinnett County Youth Symphony and the Gwinnett Youth Symphony Orchestra, and also played with the Buckhead Youth Orchestra. As a freshman, he was selected to participate in the prestigious Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Talent Development Program, where he studies under the tutelage of ASO principal bassist Colin Corner. He also plays with the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra. In 2015, he attended the Kansas City Bass Workshop, where he had master classes with Francois Rabbath and other nationally recognized bassists. In 2016, he attended the Florida State Double Bass Workshop and looks forward to attending Interlochen, as well as the International Society of Bassists conference this summer. He is an honor student at Collins Hill, a Kappa League mentee with the Lawrenceville-Duluth Alumni Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, and has represented his schools at var-ious leadership conferences. His career aspirations are to become a professional orchestral musician.
Interlochen Arts Camp attracts students, faculty and staff from all 50 U.S. states and more than 40 countries. These 2,500 artists fill Interlochen’s northwoods campus with an explosion of creativity. Student-artists learn from world-class instructors and produce hundreds of presentations each summer in dance, theatre, creative writing, visual arts, music and film.
Among the distinguished Camp alumni are Norah Jones, singer Josh Groban, members of the band OK Go, Rufus Wainwright, opera and concert soprano Jessye Norman, conductor Loren Maazel, jazz pianist Eldar, actor Anthony Rapp, cartoonist Cathy Guisewite and many more. Approximately ten percent of the nation’s professional orchestra musicians have roots at Interlochen and the alumni community has been awarded nearly 100 Grammy Awards.
In addition to hundreds of performances, presentations and readings by young artists, Interlochen brings leading artists and performers to the northern Michigan campus. In recent years, guest artists have included Joshua Bell, Josh Groban, the Decemberists, the Avett Brothers, Olga Kern, Harry Connick Jr., Trace Adkins, Branford Marsalis and many more.
