Storytelling Through Song

Okorie Johnson ’93 began playing the cello at age six and has been playing it ever since. However, he’s much more than a cellist; he is an improviser, storyteller, teacher, facilitator, performance and film producer, and writer/thinker. Rather than performing classical music in traditional concert formats, he uses his cello to actively engage his audiences in a show experience unlike anything they have likely encountered before.

Johnson’s original songs and albums can be sampled at his website (okcello.com) and on YouTube.

Johnson’s live shows, however, are a fuller expression of his work and his art. He uses storytelling and audience participation to create what he describes as “a richly layered and transcendent experience inspired by African Diasporic melodies and narratives and their intersection with people’s perceptions and assumptions about classical and European nature of the cello.”

Johnson started at Landon in fourth grade. He played throughout school in the string ensembles and in Richard Weilenmann’s Beethoven Pops program in his middle school years.

At Morehouse College in Atlanta, Johnson majored in English and continued playing cello in an orchestra for non-majors. Through friends he expanded to contemporary music when he connected with musicians in what he described as, “Atlanta’s afrohippie scene.” When he met India.Arie very early in her career, she invited him to record on one of her songs, and “the ball started rolling,” he recalls.

After graduating from college, Johnson performed as a contemporary rock cellist until “reality set in” and he sought a steady income. He began teaching English while continuing music on the side via session work, occasional performances with bands, and teaching cello.

Johnson taught in the classroom for 10 years, including six years at Landon from 2001 to 2006. This past March as part of the Kennedy Center’s “Office Hours” program, he workshopped the process for a sound installation he will create in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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