Originally from Ontario, Canada, composer and trumpeter Darren Johnston moved to San Francisco, CA in 1997, where he has been living ever since. As a performer, Johnston has performed, and/or recorded with such innovative musicians and composers as guitarist Fred Frith, clarinetist Don Byron, bassist Marcus Shelby, bassist Herbie Lewis, the ROVA Saxophone Quartet, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, and others. He was recently listed last June by Downbeat Magazine as one of “25 Trumpeters of the Future.”


Johnston has received commissions to write for dance, most notably for the San Francisco based companies Robert Moses’s Kin, and Amy Seiwert's im'ij-re, but primarily he writes for his own various projects and those of others in which he participates, including two works in progress for the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra.

Photo by Todd Brown, of the Red Poppy Art House fame.