Rich Johnson is a trumpet player, pedal steel guitarist, composer, and sound artist originally from Duluth, Minnesota, where he grew up on the shores of Lake Superior in a house filled with bluegrass and folk records. At age nine, he picked up his father’s neglected trumpet and spent years searching for sounds that felt bigger than the instrument itself.

Early encounters with the music of Don Cherry, Low, Kenneth Gaburo, and Fugazi opened the door to experimental music, improvisation, atmosphere, and sonic texture. Those influences continue to shape Johnson’s work today.

Performing under the name Ignite a Noise, Johnson creates immersive ambient and electroacoustic music built from trumpet, pedal steel guitar, electronics, sampling, field recordings, and live processing. Using Ableton Live as both instrument and environment, he manipulates acoustic sounds in real time — stretching decays, layering textures, and transforming brass and steel into drifting cinematic soundscapes.

His process often begins with simple acoustic events: breath through brass, the metallic bend of a pedal steel note, room resonance, amplifier hum, or environmental sound. These fragments are captured, processed, and reshaped into slowly evolving compositions that blur the line between improvisation and sound design.

Growing up beside Lake Superior left a lasting imprint on Johnson’s musical language. The openness, extreme winter weather, and vast silence of northern Minnesota continue to influence the pacing and atmosphere of his work. His recordings frequently explore themes of distance, memory, decay, and physical space. Music that feels suspended somewhere between jazz, ambient music, Americana, drone, and musique concrète.

In addition to his solo work, Johnson has collaborated on projects spanning contemporary jazz, experimental music, and multimedia performance.

He also serves as co-producer of the Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT Music), working alongside Dave Douglas and a dedicated community of artists, composers, performers, and organizers to present new works and performances from a diverse international network of trumpet and brass musicians.