Oboist Celeste Johnson enjoys a career that combines teaching with solo, chamber music and orchestral performing.

A dedicated pedagogue, Ms. Johnson is currently serving as the Assistant Professor of Oboe at Oklahoma State University. She will join the Bay View Music Festival as an artist and faculty member in the summer of 2009. She regularly performs with the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, Tulsa Opera, and Oklahoma City Philharmonic. Previous orchestral engagements include positions with the Sarasota Opera Orchestra, Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra, Champaign-Urbana Symphony, Quad Cities Symphony and Sinfonia da Camera. She has also performed as guest principal oboist with the Russian String Orchestra and served as Principal Oboe for the New York String Orchestra with performances in Carnegie Hall.

Ms. Johnson regularly plays solo recitals, and presented a program entitled “Spotlight on Villa Lobos” at the International Double Reed Society Conference at Ithaca College in 2007. Named a Semi-Finalist in the Concert Artists Guild International Competition in 2005, she has also twice been named a finalist in the Fernand Gillet/Hugo Fox International Oboe Competition, competing at International Double Reed Society conferences at both the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and the University of West Virginia. In 2004, she performed as one of three finalists in the Barnett Foundation Oboe Competition in Chicago, Illinois. While pursuing her bachelor’s degree, she won the University of Illinois Concerto Competition, where she was consequently featured as a soloist with the University Orchestra. She has also performed as a concerto soloist with the Oklahoma State University Wind Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra.

In 2005, Ms. Johnson spent the summer performing exclusively contemporary music under Pierre Boulez at the Lucerne Festival Academy in Switzerland. Previous summers have been spent performing at various music festivals including the Aspen Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, Kent/Blossom, Opera in the Ozarks, the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada, and as a fellowship recipient at the Tanglewood Music Center. While pursuing her Master’s degree, she toured and performed extensively as a member of the Eastman Chamber Music Society.

An avid clinician, Ms. Johnson has presented master classes at numerous high schools and universities across the country including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Vanderbilt University, Illinois State University, and the University of Virginia, among others.

Ms. Johnson holds a Master of Music degree in Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music and a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her primary teachers have included Richard Killmer, Nancy Ambrose-King, Dan Stolper and Phil Koch.