Sasha Johnson

Sasha Johnson began his musical training at age 16, studying brass chamber music and tuba with Sam Pilafian at the Empire Brass Seminar of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Following his undergraduate studies in Toronto and New York, Sasha was the first Canadian tuba player to attend Von Karajan Academy, the orchestra academy of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Having begun his professional career in Berlin, Sasha went on to perform with many other European orchestras, including the Berlin Symphony, Berlin State Opera, Radio Orchestra Berlin, Orchestre Symphonique de Radio France, Orchestre de Paris, Ensemble Modern, and Orchestre National Bordeaux. He has performed in such music festivals and concert venues as the Lucerne Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Concertgebouw, Wiener Konzerthaus, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Salzburg Festival, and BBC Proms, under such eminent conductors as Claudio Abbado, James Levine, Pierre Boulez, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Charles Dutoit, Kurt Masur, and Seiji Ozawa.

Sasha is tuba faculty at the Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School of Music and instructor of tuba, low brass, and chamber music at McGill University and the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. In January 2009, he was appointed principal tuba of the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra, where he continues today. Sasha was acting principal tuba of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for their 2009/2010 season, has performed regularly with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal—with whom he toured to Europe, Japan, and Carnegie Hall—and was acting principal of the Canadian Opera Company for their 2019/20 season.

As a chamber musician, Sasha is a member and co-manager of the True North Brass (www.truenorthbrass.com), presenting brass quintet performances and masterclasses across Canada.

In 2015, Sasha founded the Canadian National Brass Project (http://www.canadiannationalbrassproject.com/), a 24-piece symphonic brass ensemble comprised of principal players from fifteen symphony orchestras. Their first self-titled recording was ranked among the CBC’s Top Classical Recordings of 2017, and their second recording, Constellations, was released in March 2020 on the Analekta label.