Daniel Johnson-Wilmot is a Professor of Music in the Music Department at Viterbo University in his forty-seventh year.   He received his Bachelor of Arts in Music from St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota and a Master of Music in Voice from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He currently teaches applied voice and vocal pedagogy and served as chair of the music department twice during his tenure for a total of thirteen years.  He is a past Regional Governor of the North Central Region of NATS and has served two terms as the National Vice President for Membership of NATS .  He serves on the NATS National Conference Committee and he previously chaired the Wisconsin NATS Student Auditions for more than twenty-five years.  He is currently the NATS National Student Auditions Coordinator. 

He has sung roles in The Marriage of Figaro, The Wings of the Dove, Rigoletto, La Boheme, The Rake’s Progress, and Die Fledermaus. As a District Metropolitan Opera Audition First Place Winner, he received early recognition as a fine lyric baritone.   Works he has directed include “The Marriage of Figaro, The Consul, The Robbers, Riders to the Sea, Dido and Aeneas, Hansel and Gretel, Amahl and the Night Visitors, Cinderella , The Barber of Seville, The Magic Flute, and Die Fledermaus” and numerous one-act operas.

Johnson-Wilmot has appeared as a soloist with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Pro Arte Quartet, Fox Valley Symphony, Waukesha Symphony, La Crosse Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra in the Blossom Music Festival. His performances with the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra were bass and baritone solos in Orff’s Carmina Burana, Beethoven’s Ninth symphony, Haydn’s Creation, and the Verdi Requiem. 

Daniel has adjudicated auditions and competitions and taught master classes in the United States, Europe and China.  His voice students have won over three hundred and fifty awards in the NATS state, regional and national auditions. His students are frequent winners in the district and regional Metropolitan Opera auditions, the Bruce Carlson Schubert Club Scholarship competition, and the Classical Singer competition.  His former students are singing on Broadway and the Metropolitan Opera and in summer programs at Sarasota, Ohio Light, Glimmerglass, Merola, and Central City and professional choral groups such as Chanticleer.  His students have received scholarships to prestigious graduate programs at Manhattan School, University of Indiana, Bloomington, Cleveland Institute, University of Houston, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, University of Kentucky, Lexington and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Johnson-Wilmot conducted the Viterbo University Concert Choir for thirty years. He founded the La Crosse Boy Choir in 1974 and was their music director/conductor for thirty years. He founded the Three Rivers Girls Choir in 1987 and directed them for ten years. He was the bass section leader in the St. Joseph the Workman Cathedral Gallery Singers for eleven years and sang in the Choir of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadeloupe.

“I love teaching because I enjoy the process that students engage in as they discover the musical gifts and artistic potential they possess and develop that potential to its fullest. The study of vocal music is a cooperative venture where teacher and student and accompanist enter in as partners to explore the creative potential of vocal artistry."