BLAKE-ANTHONY JOHNSON
Blake-Anthony Johnson has served as the CEO of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation since January 2025. His accolades include the Titan Awards 2025, recognition on the New Orleans CityBusiness 2025 New Executives Power List, and a feature in The New Orleans 500, an annual publication from Biz New Orleans highlighting the business leaders shaping the region’s economy.
Noted as a “business heavyweight” by Crain’s Chicago Business, executive Blake-Anthony Johnson has, throughout his career, extended the artistic, commercial, and technological boundaries of what a cultural institution can be in the 21st century through creative leadership, commitment to innovation, and progressive vision. With a focus on community-centric, multi-disciplinary, and educational initiatives that enable institutions to provide equitable access and public service to all, Johnson has been universally recognized and applauded for his civic engagement and transformational leadership. He was the first African American executive to guide a nationally renowned orchestra and has served on numerous boards and panels throughout the country by invitation. Recent honors include being named a 2023 Harvard Business School Club Chicago Fellow and attending Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management, being named a recipient of the 2023 Black Men in Excellence Award by the Black Professionals Network, one of MusicalAmerica.com’s 2022 Top 30 Professionals of the Year, Chicago Tribune’s 2022 Chicagoan of the Year in Classical Music, and a member of Crain’s Chicago Business magazine’s Class of 2022 40 Under 40.
Johnson previously served as President & CEO of the award-winning Chicago Sinfonietta, an acclaimed cultural leader in the field and a powerful champion of diversity, equity, and inclusion. He led the organization from 2020 to 2024, first as Chief Executive Officer and later as President & CEO. Under his leadership, Chicago Sinfonietta significantly expanded its reach and community programming. He spearheaded the Artist-in-Residence initiative and expanded the flagship Freeman Fellowship program. Johnson also led complex negotiations to establish a historic partnership with Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre, securing it as the orchestra’s new home and performance venue for the 2023-2024 season, alongside Naperville’s Wentz Concert Hall. He guided the organization through its first major tour in over a decade, garnering national coverage, and launched the orchestra’s first annual fund, significantly extending the funding base beyond Chicago by 36%. Additionally, he introduced the nationally acclaimed Pay-What-You-Can Program in fall 2021, praised by The New York Times and widely adopted by other classical organizations across the nation.
During his tenure in Chicago, Johnson also served as Co-Chair of the City of Chicago’s DCASE Cultural Advisory Council, where he facilitated directional change in Chicago’s cultural policy through multiple initiatives, expanding access and participation in the arts. He was an integral part of the City of Chicago Tokyo-Osaka delegation with World Business Chicago and mayoral delegations, promoting trade, investment, and building partnerships with senior federal government officials and business leaders. As Chair of the Toronto Sister City Committee, he was a committee member of Chicago Sister Cities International, a division of World Business Chicago—the city’s public‑private economic development agency. He also served on the Board of Directors for The Sir Georg Solti Foundation U.S., one of the country’s foremost organizations dedicated to assisting young American conductors, and was a member of the League of American Orchestras’ EDI Orchestra Management Committee.
Johnson has also held advisory and trustee roles across various national organizations focused on the arts, eliminating intergenerational poverty, criminal justice reform, and healthcare, including The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Chicago Live Artistic Advisory Committee (Navy Pier), Vanderbilt University’s Dean Advisory Circle for the Blair School of Music, AIRIE: National Advisory Committee, and The San Francisco Conservatory of Music in partnership with the San Francisco Symphony Emerging Black Composers Project Evaluation Committee.
Before transitioning fully into arts administration, Johnson had an accomplished career as a professional cellist and was a protégé of Michael Tilson Thomas at New World Symphony, where he received extensive leadership training. His focus on arts administration and education began while he was a music student at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. As a musician, he performed as a member and soloist with ensembles such as Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Nashville Symphony, and the National Repertory Orchestra in the U.S.; with the New York Symphonic Ensemble’s 2017 Japan tour; with Chineke! Orchestra in the U.K.; and Sinfonietta Polonia in Poland. Festival appearances included Spoleto Music Festival USA (principal), Brevard Music Festival, and France’s Aix-en-Provence Music Festival. He was a featured artist on NPR’s nationwide radio program From the Top with Christopher O’Riley and NPR’s What Makes It Great? with Rob Kapilow. His recorded works include compositions by Richard Danielpour, Claudio Gabriele, and Poul Ruders.
While at Vanderbilt, Johnson founded and served as Program Director of Classical Cake, a free concert series introducing first-time audience members to a diverse spectrum of music. Following its success, he expanded his concept by creating the Music Education for Youth Initiative, fostering meaningful exchange between the Nashville Symphony, W.O. Smith School, and Vanderbilt University students with underprivileged youth within the Nashville community. He later served as Assistant Personnel Manager of the Spoleto Music Festival USA and as Director of Learning and Community for the Louisville Orchestra, where he was also an Arts Advisory Council Member. Other organizations with which he has worked in arts education and outreach include Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, El Sistema, and the Academia Filarmónica de Medellín.
Johnson’s honors and awards include multiple proclamations from the City of Chicago for his civic and cultural service, the 2022 Brevard Music Center Distinguished Alumni Award, the Chicago Urban League 2022 Impact Fellowship (awarded by The University of Chicago Booth School of Business), and the 2022 Chicago Community Trust Daniel Burnham Fellowship (awarded by Leadership Greater Chicago). As a musician, his accolades include the World Competition Audience Choice Award, the Daniel Rains Concerto Competition, and the Brevard Music Festival Concerto Competition. He was a prize winner of the MTNA Young Artist Competition and a recipient of the Blair School of Music’s Jean Keller Heard Prize for musical excellence.
A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Blake-Anthony Johnson holds an MM from Cleveland State University, a BM from Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music, and a certificate from Manhattan School of Music in Orchestral Performance. Additional studies were with Martin Löhr, Aline Champion, David Geber, Alan Stepansky, Alan Rafferty, and Wolfram Koessel. Former posts include three seasons as a member of the Steering Committee of Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative (2020-2023), two terms on the National Endowment for the Arts Music Panel, and as a judge in Chicago’s 2021 3Arts Awards. Johnson has also served as an emcee, moderator, and facilitator—including for the 2021 League of American Orchestras’ 76th National Conference—and as a speaker at the League’s 2020 Mid-Winter Conference. In 2023, he delivered the closing remarks at the Collision Conference, Toronto Stock Exchange, in Canada. His professional training includes participation in education, community engagement, and collective bargaining workshops at The League of American Orchestras’ 2018 Conference and a Certificate of Study in American Law from the University of Pennsylvania.
Blake-Anthony Johnson’s multifaceted career has included work as a performer, collaborator, recording artist, and educator. Self-taught until the age of 18, Johnson has developed a diverse professional career as a guest principal cellist, chamber musician, soloist and recitalist around the globe. Johnson has recorded works by Richard Danielpour, Claudio Gabriele, and Poul Ruders and has previously been featured on NPR’s “From the Top” with Christopher O’Riley and “What makes it great” with Rob Kiplow radio broadcasts.
Passionate about chamber music, Johnson is a founding member and former cellist in the Läc Quartet. As the recipient of the Vanderbilt Music Académie grant, the quartet received commissions and residency in the Festival d’Aix festival held in Aix-en-Provence, France. Past solo and chamber engagements have been with the Spoleto USA Music Festival, Lev Aronson Legacy Music Festival, National Repertory Orchestra and Brevard Music Festival. Johnson’s most recent solo highlights include his solo debut with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Mostly Mozart Festival of Vermont, and his solo appearances with the with the New York Symphonic Ensemble on tour in Japan.
Johnson is a prizewinner in the MTNA Young Artist Competition, the World Competition, the Daniel Rains, and Brevard Music Festival Concerto competitions. He received his Bachelor of Music degree under Felix Wang and Kathryn Plummer while attending the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University, later studying under Bryan Dumm and Alan Harrell of the Cleveland Orchestra for his Master’s of Music degree. Johnson’s professional studies degree was completed at the Manhattan School of Music in the Orchestral Performance program. Additional studies were with Martin Löhr, Aline Champion, David Geber, Alan Stepanksy, Alan Rafferty, and Wolfram Koessel.
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