– Contributed photo
HART — The Hart Community Performing Arts Series will kick off its 2025-2026 season Friday, Oct. 10, when it presents the Kris Johnson Group in concert.
The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Hart Public Schools Auditorium, located in the Hart Middle School. Tickets are available at the door or online at hartseries.org.
Kris Johnson is an empathetic, intelligent, and efficient trumpeter, composer, arranger, film composer, and educator based in Detroit. Kris’s professional career is expansive for an artist so young, including: composing several musicals, including “Jim Crow’s Tears” and “Hastings Street: The Musical”; scoring films, such as the Emmy-nominated web series “King Ester”; producing successful personal projects, such as the Kris Johnson Group, and #looptherapy; and serving as the founder and director of the Paradise Theatre Big Band through the Detroit Symphony.
With contributions to six Grammy-nominated albums as a trumpeter and arranger, including the 2024 Grammy-winning “Basie Swings the Blues” by the Count Basie Orchestra, Kris is a recognized force in the industry. His career highlights include touring globally as a member of Endea Owens and the Cookout from 2023-2024, and with the esteemed Count Basie Orchestra from 2008-2019 as a soloist and arranger, performing at prestigious venues like the Apollo Theater, Hollywood Bowl, the Sydney Opera House, Kennedy Center, and more. His collaborations extend to musicians like Wynton Marsalis, Tony Bennett, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Leslie Odom Jr., and Wycliffe Gordon, showcasing his versatile talent.
Currently, Kris is an assistant professor of jazz trumpet at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance. His journey as an educator began with his own education at Michigan State University, where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in jazz studies in 2005 and 2007, respectively.
He has gone on to serve in the role of director of jazz studies at the University of Utah from 2015-2019; a project director for Pontiac School District, leading a U.S. Department of Education Arts in Education – Model Development and Dissemination Grant from 2009-2010; as the education and digital programming manager for the Motown Museum in 2021; and as the executive director of the MSU Community Music School-Detroit from 2022-2024. Additionally, he has served on the teaching faculty at Ohio State University, Detroit Symphony Orchestra Civic Youth Ensembles, and as an artistic liaison for JazzEd Detroit through a partnership with ArtOps and the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation.
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