Grant Johannesen papers, 1870-2005

Grant Johannesen (1921-2005) was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was playing the piano by the time he was five, and eventually studied with Robert Casadesus in New York, and eventually Roger Sessions, and Nadia Boulanger. Johannesen made his Manhattan recital debut when he was 23, and won the Concours International when he was 28. Johannesen toured with various companies, and was also a solo performer. He played with the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Utah Symphony. He opened the 75th Anniversary season at Carnegie Hall in 1966, and travelled extensively, playing in the (then) Soviet Union, Israel, Europe, and South America. In celebration of his Scandinavian roots, he played for Norway's King Olaf, again at Carnegie Hall. Musically, Johannesen's well-known passion were lesser-known composers. In order to make them more available, he concentrated on Gabriel Faure, recording all of the French composer's piano works, as well as Francis Poulenc, and Darius Milhaud. He also played Franz Xaver, considered Mozart's "forgotten son." Johannesen was the president of the Cleveland Institute of Music from 1977 to 1985. Grant Johannesen was married to composer Helen Taylor, from 1943-1950, until her death in an automobile accident. They had a son, David Johannesen. His second wife was cellist Zara Nelsova, from 1963 to 1973, when they divorced. At the time of his death, in Berlin in 2005, Johannesen had just finished a project called Mormoniana, a piano suite in collaberation with sixteen other musicians who also had LDS roots.