Lawrence B. Johnson has worked as a performing arts critic – specializing in classical music, theater and jazz – for more than four decades. The recipient of many journalism awards, Johnson has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Detroit News, The Milwaukee Sentinel and magazines running the gamut from Musical America and Opera News to Playboy.

Johnson is a graduate of Indiana State University, where he received a degree in humanistic studies with concentrations in French literature, philosophy and music history. He did post-graduate studies in music history at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. In 1975, he was awarded a mid-career journalism Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Humanities for a year’s study at the University of Michigan, where he focused on classical Greek drama, Shakespeare and modern playwrights.

A widely published authority on consumer audio and video technology, Johnson was founding editor of The Stereophile Guide the Home Theater. He has taught journalism, criticism and music history at Marquette University, the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, Wayne State University and the Wisconsin Conservatory.

Johnson is also an expert on the wines of France and Italy and has written extensively on the subject for the wine trade. He spends as much free time as possible in wine country, and calls Paris his favorite haunt in the world after Chicago, where he lives. He admits to one other unbounded passion: For more than half a century he has harbored a brotherly love for the Chicago Bears.