Michele S. Johns

Adjunct Associate Professor of Organ
johnsm@umich.edu
734-764-2500

Michele Johns is professor of music at The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance where she has taught church music skills and philosophy for over twenty years. She is the author of Hymn Improvisation (Augsburg Fortress, 1987) which has received critical acclaim in major professional journals and continues to enjoy popularity with organ students in universities as well as those at other levels of experience.

Dr. Johns is co-founder and executive director of The American Center of Church Music, an Ann Arbor-based, non-profit organization through which she was producer of five interdenominational choir festivals, plus concerts, hymn-playing competitions, workshops, and conferences for the enrichment of church musicians. She was also co-founder and first Dean of the Ann Arbor chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

As a scholar-performer, Dr. Johns has specialized in historic keyboards and their literature. Her twenty-five European tours have resulted in multi-media lectures covering more than 200 historic and modern instruments. Organ solo appearance in North America and abroad feature music of the 18th and 20th centuries.

Dr. Johns is Director of Music at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church, Plymouth, MI, whose music ministry of over 300 parishioners is one of the largest in the Archdiocese of Detroit. In 2002, a 3-manual, 42-rank Casavant organ was designed and installed under her supervision and is housed in a new state of the art award-winning Roman Catholic worship space. She is conductor of the Plymouth Counsellors Chorale, a mixed adult chorus of 70 voices ranging in age from 20 to 80 years. Under her direction, the choir has performed in churches and cathedrals of ten European countries plus churches in the USA. A repertoire of over 250 musical selections allows the Chorale to choose repertoire in Latin, French, German, Spanish, and including African dialects.

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