Candace Johnson, Leader

Now in her sixth year of leading AMN’s Juneteenth Choral Celebration, Candace Johnson has been a voice instructor at UC Berkeley for 17 years, and in 2022 also became the director of the University Gospel Choir. A lyric coloratura soprano, she crosses musical boundaries performing classical, jazz, musical theater, pop and gospel. She has sung on many stages, including Carnegie Hall and The Manhattan Center.

Also a playwright and actress, Candace premiered her first one-woman show, Vox in a Box, in UC Berkeley’s Hertz Hall in 2018, which led to her becoming a resident solo artist at The Marsh theater (Berkeley/San Francisco). Candace has written and performed 5 full-length one-woman musicals. Her most recent show, Scat-ter Brain: The Music of ADHD, was commissioned by The Marsh in 2024 for its inaugural IFOYE festival of new works by women-identifying playwrights. Following an extended run, Scat-ter Brain was nominated by Broadway World SF for Best Solo Show of 2025.

Candace has coached American Idol singers as well as the African American Theater Arts Troupe of UC Santa Cruz, and she is a resident coach of the Formerly Incarcerated People’s Performance Project based in Berkeley. Recently she was named Co-Artistic Director of Musical Soulmates, a non-profit organization in Santa Cruz that centers BIPOC performers and the works of Black composers and songwriters through live performance and mentorship.

Singing since age 5, Candace studied applied voice at Vanderbilt University, Eastern Michigan University, and earned her Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Michigan, where she studied with the late Shirley Verrett, Willis Patterson, and George Shirley. Off stage, Candace enjoys integrating singing and music with other disciplines, which led to her creation of FitnesSing!, a unique class that combines vocal training with physical fitness. And, Candace is the proud parent of two amazing teenagers.