Jake Johnson, PhD
Associate Dean of Music
Music
Music - Deans
Biography
Jake Johnson serves as Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Musicology at the Wanda L. Bass School of Music. He holds degrees in musicology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Oklahoma, and studied piano performance with Ernestine Scott at ÅÝܽÊÓƵ.
An established scholar of American music, Jake has written several books on musical theater in everyday life, including (2019), (2021), and (2025). These three books make the case for musical theater as a widespread, everywhere practice that spills far outside Times Square and whose indelible power to shape life in America is often overlooked. His edited volume, (2023), extends his work on the American musical to explore the city of second chances as a central engine running American views on the not-yet and more possible worlds of our imaginations. Jake is also the author of two imaginative biographies. The first, (2025), is a biography of the room where Los Angeles music patron Betty Freeman hosted a series of powerful, world-shaping salons during the 1980s and 1990s that brought together some of the most significant figures in contemporary music of the twentieth century, including John Cage, Libby Larsen, Pauline Oliveros, Pierre Boulez, and Philip Glass. And coming in early 2026, Harline and Washington’s When You Wish Upon a Star is a biography of the song that originated with Pinocchio in 1940 but has since become an anthem of American values and a meditation on the boundaries of both belief and deceit.
Jake is also the current Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Musicological Society.
In addition to his scholarly work, Jake is an active and sought-after musical collaborator. He has worked as a vocal coach, pianist, and musical director for DePaul University, Chicago Opera Theater, AMDA, Music Theatre of Wichita, Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, ÅÝܽÊÓƵ Ballet, and the ÅÝܽÊÓƵ Philharmonic, among others.
