Dr. Trace Johnson is a cellist from Madison, Wisconsin. Trace has appeared as a chamber musician, soloist, and orchestral musician in a wide variety of ensembles and settings around the world. Equally at home teaching in the studio or performing on stage, Trace is a devoted and thoughtful communicator who enjoys a varied career as a cellist, teacher, and musician.

Trace has won orchestral positions at the Southwest Florida Symphony Orchestra, Orlando Philharmonic, Sarasota Orchestra, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and the Madison Symphony Orchestra. Recently, Trace has performed on Masterworks programs with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and the Artosphere Festival Orchestra in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Trace has also performed with the Florentine Opera, Sarasota Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Miami City Ballet Orchestra, Nu-Deco Ensemble, Florida Grand Opera, Atlantic Classical Orchestra, Symphony of the Americas, LaCrosse Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony Orchestra, and in touring productions of Disney’s Anastasia, Hello Dolley, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Andrea Bocelli, and Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience.

As a chamber performer, Trace has appeared in recitals with faculty from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Eastman School of Music, New England Conservatory of Music, University of California: Los Angeles, The Juilliard School, Rice University, The Colburn School, University of Toronto, Florida Atlantic University, Lynn Conservatory in Boca Raton, Florida, Palm Beach Atlantic University, Florida International University, Shenandoah University, Queens College in New York City, SUNY Purchase University, Mannes School of Music, and the University of Michigan-Lansing. Trace has had recent chamber collaborations with members of the Willy Street Chamber Players, Bach Dancing Dynamite Society, and LunArts Festival in Madison, Wisconsin and in Fairhope, Alabama at the Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival where he is one of two Co-Artistic and Executive Directors.

 An advocate of contemporary music, Trace has been involved in many different projects performing the works of modern composers. In November 2020, Trace recorded solo cello work, All the Pretty Little Horses, by Wisconsin composer Laura Schwendinger at Oktaven Studios in Hoboken, New Jersey, the unaccompanied cello work will be included on an Albany Records release soon. In August 2021, Trace produced recordings from two contemporary solo recitals recorded live at the Arts + Literature Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin in early August 2021. At the A+LL recitals, Trace performed works by Osvaldo Golijov, Steven Stucky, Laura Elise Schwendinger, and a premiere from New York-based composer, Jesse Limbacher entitled, 'Trace​d for ‘Cello Solo’. In the summer of 2022 at the Atlantic Music Festival in Waterville, Maine, Trace premiered the new unaccompanied cello solo ‘Hushing Song’ by Pulitzer-prize-winning American composer, Melinda Wagner. Trace recently recorded his arrangement of Jonathon Harvey’s ‘Ricercare Una Melodia’ for cello and electronics, Barber Cello Sonata, Guillaume Connesson’s Les Chants des L’Agartha, Erwin Schulhoff Duo for Violin and Cello, and a new contemporary solo cello work by Melinda Wagner, Limbic Notes, for an upcoming Albany Records release entitled ‘Trace Johnson, Works for Cello’ in 2025. 

Trace has been teaching for more than a decade in schools and private institutions both nationally and abroad. From 2015-16, Trace worked as an outreach teacher and clinician with the touring crossover ensemble Barrage8 across the United States, Canada, and Europe. Trace is Suzuki Certified in Pre-Twinkle, Suzuki Book 1, and Book 2 from master pedagogue, Dr. Tanya Carey and worked as the principal cello teacher and group class instructor at the Palm Beach Suzuki School of Music from 2014-2021. In Florida, Trace had multiple students successfully audition for first-chair appointments at​ the Palm Beach Youth Orchestra, Florida Youth Orchestra, Youth Orchestra of Palm Beach County, All-County Middle-School Orchestra of South Florida, 2020-21 Florida All-State Orchestra, and had top prize winners at the Festival of the Arts Competition in Boca Raton​, FL. In Wisconsin, Trace has had students successfully audition for ​Opus 1, Sinfonietta, Concert, Philharmonia, and Youth Orchestras at Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO). Trace has recently appeared with the Hunt String Quartet, Madison Youth Choir, Madison Cello Ensemble, and WYSO Chamber Program as an Outreach Performer and Chamber Music Coach.  Trace currently teaches a private studio of cellists at his home on the east side of Madison as well as a group class called East Side Strings which performs in a wide variety of contexts in the greater Madison area.

Trace is one-quarter Mexican whose ancestry comes from relatives who emigrated from Chihuahua, Mexico to the Bay Area of California in the middle of the 19th century. Trace is affiliated with the national organization and diversity in the arts leader, Sphinx organization, and has been a scholarship recipient several times in recent years. ​While a doctoral student at UW-Madison, Trace was a top-prize winner at the Bolz Center for Arts Administration’s Arts Business Competition in addition to receiving the Lyman S.V. Judson and Ellen Mackechnie Judson Graduate Student Award in the Creative Arts, Creative Arts Division Creative Arts Award, and the Mead Witter Music School Graduate Student Grant Competition award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Trace received his Bachelor of Music in Cello Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2012 and his Master’s of Music from Lynn Conservatory in December 2016, his principal instructors have been David Cole, Dr. Melissa Kraut, Joseph Johnson, and Dr. Tanya Carey. Trace recently received his Doctor of Musical Arts, DMA, degree with a minor in Electro-Acoustic Music from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Mead Witter School of Music as a Collins Fellow under the tutelage of cellist and Feldenkreis practitioner, Uri Vardi and Pro Arte Quartet cellist, Parry Karp.