Victoria Johnson studied violin with Leif Jørgensen at the Oslo Conservatory. She continued her studies at
the State Academy in Vienna under Franz Samohyl, and later with Detlef Hahn at the Guildhall School of
Music and Drama in London. Here she was awarded a Diploma with honours.
Victoria gave her debut recital in Oslo in 1995 to great acclaim and has since performed as a soloist with
many orchestras and participated in international chamber music festivals. 1993-95 she held the position of
principal leader of 2nd violins in The Norwegian Opera Orchestra.
Both her chamber music CDs Ametri with Ametri string quartet and Navigations with the string duo
Kyberia, were nominated to the Norwegian Grammy award (Spellemannspris).
Victoria has commissioned and performed many pieces for electric violin and live electronics made by
Norwegian and international composers. She premiered some of them at the Autunnale festival of
contemporary music, Bergen in 2003. Since then she has appeared in many festivals, and played solo
concerts in Norway and abroad.
She started Autumn 2007 a 3-year research project on electric violin and electronics at the Norwegian
Academy of Music, supported by the Norwegian Research Fellowship for the Arts. Among her recent
projects are improvisation with electric violin and live electronics and collaboration with different video
artists.
As an improviser Victoria performs as a soloist as well as with the improvisation group Fat Battery.
Autumn 2008 included a concert at Trondheim Chamber Music festival, première of Multimorf II by Knut
Vaage in Oslo Concert Hall arranged by Norwegian Research Council, concerts in Basel and Mannheim with Fat Battery and the performance of a new solo piece by Peter Tornquist and Victoria Johnson at the
Ultima festival in Oslo.
2009 included concerts/concert installations in Bergen and Oslo with her project Satellite, and she was a
soloist with Kristiand Sinfonietta, playing Peter Tornquist’s new piece Traces at the Punktfestival.
During 2010/11 she recorded two CDs, one with commissioned pieces from her research project, and one
containing improvisations together with Peter Tornquist. In February 2011 she played at the Ilios Festival
in Harstad, Northern Norway.