About
Oran Johnson (b. 1998) is a London-based composer and multi-instrumentalist whose music is influenced by an eclectic variety of experience and listening.
In December 2023 he released Landscapes, an EP of six pieces for electric guitar that he wrote and recorded over the summer. They're pieces that bring together different aspects of his musical life, influenced as much by his experiences of playing guitar in indie bands as his experiences of composing for classical ensembles. Each track presents a different atmosphere, creating a journey through energetic rhythms, ambient moods and distorted textures. They also each feature a different way of playing the guitar, from using a cello bow to rubbing the strings with a coin.
Oran's orchestral music often exhibits his eclecticism through juxtaposing rhythmic riffs with slower, melodic sections. This can be heard in pieces such as Quilt, which was premiered in 2023 by the Manson Ensemble, conducted by Geoffrey Paterson, and Rupture which was workshopped in 2022 by the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Aaron Holloway-Nahum. He has also written music that features electronics, often drawing on hip-hop production techniques such as sampling, as demonstrated in 2023's Glass Songs for which he recorded himself striking and breaking glass objects and then transformed the recordings into rhythmic grooves, atmospheric textures or melodic fragments. His piece Tear it apart, which featured a glitchy sampled drum beat, was highly commended in the Alan Bush Composition Prize 2022.
He has also composed film scores, including for Katie King’s Made for Duty Overseas which has been screened at film festivals in the UK, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Poland and the USA.
Other works of his include the graphic score piece Surge, in which the performers respond to painted images of blue and red shapes growing and fading. This piece was released by October House Records in 2023 on Ways of Watching, an album of pieces written and performed by students of the Royal Academy of Music alongside members of Riot Ensemble. His music has also been performed by CHROMA, CoMA London Ensemble and Colossus Collective.
Oran is also passionate about music education and has led composition workshops in schools with ‘Lights Camera Score’, supporting classes of children to write music that accompanies either a short animated film or spoken narration. In 2023 he created an arrangement for the English Chamber Orchestra of a piece that had been written by schoolchildren under his supervision. The orchestra, conducted by Sally Herbert, then performed this for the children who wrote it. He also works as an curriculum music, music theory, and piano teacher.
He completed his master’s degree in composition at the Royal Academy of Music where he studied with Edmund Finnis and was supported by a Vaughan Williams Bursary.