Gunnar Johansen facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Gunnar Johansen
Born	January 21, 1906 Copenhagen, Denmark
Died	May 25, 1991 (aged 85) Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, U.S.
Occupation	Pianist, composer, academic

Gunnar Johansen (born January 21, 1906, in Copenhagen, Denmark – died May 25, 1991, in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, USA) was a talented pianist and composer. He was known for playing and recording all the piano music by famous composers like Ferruccio Busoni and Johann Sebastian Bach.

Gunnar was also a smart scholar, a teacher, and someone who cared deeply about people. He even started the Leonardo Academy to bring together art and science.

Early Life and Music Training

Gunnar Johansen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. His father first taught him to play the piano. Gunnar gave his first public performance in his hometown when he was just twelve years old.

He continued his studies in Denmark with pianist and conductor Victor Schiøler. At age fourteen, he moved to Berlin, Germany, to learn more about music. There, he studied with Egon Petri, who was a student of Ferruccio Busoni. He also learned from other great musicians like Edwin Fischer and Frederic Lamond, who had been taught by Franz Liszt.

Career as a Pianist and Teacher

In the 1920s, Gunnar Johansen traveled around Europe, performing as a pianist. In 1929, he moved to the United States. He first lived in California, where he played music on the radio every week for NBC Radio Network in San Francisco.

Later, he became a teacher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He started working there in 1939 and taught for almost 40 years. He was the very first "artist-in-residence" at any university in the United States. This means he was a professional artist who worked and taught at the university.

In the early 1940s, Johansen settled in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin. This was a small town about 25 miles west of Madison. Many of his music compositions and recordings were made there.

Musical Recordings and Compositions

Gunnar Johansen was one of the first pianists to try and record all the known piano music by Franz Liszt. In the 1960s, he even found and recorded many of Liszt's pieces that people didn't know about before. His recordings of Liszt's music filled 51 LP records. Another pianist, Leslie Howard, later recorded even more of Liszt's piano works.

Gunnar Johansen was also a very active composer. He wrote nearly 750 different pieces of music. These included 31 piano sonatas, three piano concertos, and three violin sonatas. He also wrote a large orchestral piece in 1937 and music for string quartets, oboe, and singing groups.

Gunnar Johansen passed away from liver cancer at his home in Blue Mounds in 1991. He was 85 years old.