After a nine-month search process, Grace Cathedral is pleased to welcome Jared Johnson as Canon Director of Music effective July 1, 2023. Jared will direct all aspects of the cathedral’s music programs and will serve as a member of the Cathedral’s chapter.

Jared will be moving to San Francisco, California from Columbia, South Carolina where he has served as canon organist and choirmaster of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral since 2003. He directs the Cathedral Choristers, which features advanced choirs for boys, girls, and young men.

Jared was the music director for the Royal School of Church Music Carolina Course at Duke in 2019, and he will serve as music director of the Saint Thomas Girl Chorister Course this summer. He has performed organ recitals in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Australia. His recordings appear on the Pro Organo and JAV labels. Jared also helped to establish the Cathedral Music School for underserved students at Trinity.

“I am thrilled and humbled to be joining the Grace Cathedral community as your next canon director of music,” said Jared Johnson. “The cathedral is a landmark for excellence in music, and it will be my privilege to build on the good work that so many have done before me. The opportunity to lead such an historic choir in an environment of creativity and welcome is very rare, and I am excited to begin this work. I look forward to being part of the community and working together with you to help advance the work of Grace Cathedral.”

Jared is a graduate of Oberlin College, with degrees in English and organ performance. After graduation, he received a Watson Fellowship for conducting in London. He earned master’s and doctoral degrees from Yale University. Jared and his wife, psychologist Erin Johnson, and third-grade twins, Charlie and Sam, will be moving to San Francisco this summer.

“I am grateful to the members of the search team, led by Vice Dean Greg Kimura and president of the choir guild, Asheley Linnenbach, to the Choir of Men and Boys and to the cathedral’s entire music department,” said the Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young, Dean of Grace Cathedral. “Their leadership this year has been extraordinary. I am very proud of the quality of music at Grace Cathedral and feel especially grateful to Christopher Keady, our interim director and Gabriel Fanelli, our choirmaster who both served so faithfully. ”

The search took place as the cathedral prepared for the summer’s ambitious choir tour to Austria – the first choir tour since England in 2016.

About Grace Cathedral

Grace Cathedral is an Episcopal church in the heart of San Francisco and the 3rd largest Episcopal cathedral in the United States. Grace Cathedral is a house of prayer for all people serving the community and its congregation with courage, joy and wonder through prayer, the arts and connection in its many forms. The cathedral is famed as a destination for visitors from all over the world who come to see its striking architecture, stunning stained glass, two labyrinths, Interfaith AIDS Chapel, listen to the Aeolian-Skinner organ and the different choirs of the cathedral, and to participate in its beautiful traditional and contemporary expressions of spirituality and prayer. Everyone is welcome. For more information visit www.gracecathedral.org.