Professional Biography

Recent Highlights

September 2013 - Steve's CD "All The Right Reasons" is completed. Steve was in Nashville in early August putting the finishing touches on his latest CD. Fred Mollin produced the vocal tracks!

Visit the Website

March 2013 - CashiersNorthCarolina.org is ranked #1 in organic Google search. The site now has over 440 businesses listed.

Visit the Website

February 2013 - Steven Johannessen "Classics" website is launched. Site features performance schedule, song list and MP3 song demos.

Visit the Website

August 2012 - MemberSites rolls out acdkids.org website for Association for Child Development - State of Illinois and Michigan.

Visit the Website

July 2012 - MemberSites rolls out CashiersNorthCarolina.org community website incorporating MemberSites.

Visit the Website

March 2012 - MemberSites rolls out MemberSites V3 software which includes many asked for features for users, members and admins.

Visit the Website

January 2012 - MemberSites rolls out cacfpforum.org website for CACFP National Forum.

Visit the Website

July 2011 - MemberSites rolls out ChamberSite V2 community-based web software to the Cashiers Area Chamber Of Commerce in Cashiers, North Carolina.

May 2010 - CashiersToday.com goes online as a free community calendar for Cashiers, North Carolina. The website is administered by the Crossroads Chronicle newspaper, The Chamber Of Commerce and the Greater Cashiers Area Merchants Association. Each listed event has it's own detail page with map information, event specifics, times, etc. The site, built by Johannessen, was donated and is maintained free of charge to the community.

Visit the Website

April 2010 - Steven Johannessen incorporates software and web design firm called MemberSites. MemberSites LLC will build membership websites for communities and other organizations. Their first client will be the community of Cashiers, North Carolina.

January 2010 - Johannessen completes development of ChamberSites software. The software has been in development since summer 2009 and will be deployed in the Cashiers area as a beta test site for the software.

December 2009 - Steven Johannessen has received the Al Balistiere Community Service Award from the Cashiers Valley Rotary Club for his service to the community. His work with local businesses, the library and community service were cited as major factors in the selection.

More Info

September 2009 - Steven Johannessen has received a national award from the American Library Association (ALTAFF) for the volunteer newsletter he created for the Cashiers library while he was on the board. "The Bookmark features 10 full-color pages with library news, Friends news, events, Friends membership information, a business reply envelope for joining, and a complete list of library Friends. The excellent photographs throughout give the newsletter a professional appearance. The photography was cited as a deciding factor in the selection for the award."

More Info

July 2008 - Museum exhibit of Steven Johannessen's multi-media art on display at the Bascom Center For Visual Arts in Highlands, North Carolina. The two-week exhibit featured canvases of his artwork as well as a multimedia exhibit of his visual music compositions. The exhibit was very well received, and several canvases and DVD's were sold. Steven also gave a Saturday seminar on visual music composition at the museum.

November 2006 - Middle Of Nowhere Digital Art Gallery website is launched with new design and lots of new content. MiddleOfNowhere.com contains art galleries, music, visual music examples and information about the artist. The entire site is hand-coded and maintained by Steven. All of the music, video, animation and artwork found in the site is created and produced by Steven.

"Wonderful musician, singer, writer and visual artist with continuing breakthroughs in digital domains"
- Fred Mollin, Record Producer, Musical Arranger, former head of A&R for Disney

"Enthusiasm, energy, creativity... a digital renaissance man."
- from NBC 2000

"In all things do no harm. Ethics Matter."
- Steven Johannessen

The digital fine art of Steven Johannessen was recognized by the Gorbachev Foundation at The State Of The World Forum in 1995.

More Info

Steven Johannessen is currently in demand as a multi-disciplined creative talent by clients seeking eye-catching visual solutions and designs in their websites, video and audio production, graphics and marketing campaigns. His design skills have been utilized by IBM, Hitachi, CNA Trust, Union Bank Of California, Kurzweil Music Systems, Young Chang America, Horizon Valley Farms, Flagstar Bank, Community Vision and SmartStop, among others. He is experienced in cross-platform digital media deployment and is responsible for creative direction, content and project management for most of the projects he works on.

From 2000 until 2005, Steven was in the position of Web Creative Director and Business Analyst at Union Bank Of California/TruSource. This position involved working with a team of programmers and analysts in designing, developing and deploying large customer-based financial services websites for their client financial institutions. These firms included CNA Trust, SunAmerica, AXA Advisors, New York Life, Alliance Capital, Franklin-Templeton, TruSource and Union Bank Of California. Also, he initiated a plan within the IT group and company to unify the look and feel of their web application interfaces. He was responsible for the idea, creation, trademarking and marketing of the PlanStat brand which was used to unify and define the company's web product suite as well as internal systems interfaces. Steven designed touch screen interfaces for the bank demonstration kiosks at the headquarters, as well as creating a number of print collateral projects during that time.

View Client List

Steven has created custom synthesizer programming and sound designs for many prominent artists including Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Pink Floyd (Jon Carin), Sade, Garth Brooks, Kenny Rogers, Christopher Cross, Tower of Power, Fred Mollin, Jerry Goldsmith, Joe Sample, Patrick Moraz, The Moody Blues, Rick Wakeman, Dave Mason, Sammy Nestico, JJ Johnson, Brian Wilson, Frank Serafine, Freddie Ravel, Walfredo Reyes, Randy Waldman, Lyle Mays, Wade Preston and Gorky Park and many more - see the Clients page for complete list.

View Artist Photos

His original music has been featured on film and episodic television working with his friend, composer and producer FRED MOLLIN, and others. Steven's musical tastes range from classical and jazz, to rock, R&B, and blues, and he typically incorporates all of these styles into his work.

Listen To The Music

Steven's performing talents as a keyboardist, singer, songwriter and arranger (performing with Hurricane Creek, Back to Back, FM, Platinum, LipZone, and USAF Band to name a few) enabled him to perform in numerous clubs and venues around the United States during the 70's and 80's. His years of performing, MIDI and synthesizer programming, and solid studio experience gave him a broad background in the music production industry. This enabled him to make the transition into writing and producing television and film cues, as well as advertising and jingle production.

Steven can be found singing "Classics" - Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett songs - as a solo act, and playing keyboards and singing with "The Hurricane Creek Band" from time to time in the local area for fun.

Hurricane Creek Band

Steve Johannessen "Classics"

August 2006 - Steven Johannessen releases his first Visual Music DVD titled "Line Of Sight". Composed, created and produced by Steven this DVD represents an exciting and immersive example of what this art form can be.

See Examples

Current Information

Steven was the Director Of Artist Relations and Technical Support, as well as an Artist In Residence at Kurzweil Music Systems from 1989 through 1996, where he wrote and produced scores of keyboard, synthesizer and sampling songs for demonstration and performance. He built the Artist Endorsement Program from the ground up in 1990, and it eventually had in it's roster many of the top keyboard players, musicians, and performers of our time. As head of tech support he managed a technical support team at the company headquarters. Steven also spent a great deal of time showcasing Kurzweil products at colleges and universities, in training seminars and dealer clinics all around the country. While at Kurzweil he worked with Raymond Kurzweil (the founder of Kurzweil Music Systems) and Bob Moog (he was a scientist there).

Additional major responsibilities included directing and managing Kurzweil's trade show efforts around the country. Of note was the annual NAMM show display, where Young Chang and Kurzweil had an 8000 square foot booth space complete with multiple small buildings and soundproof demonstration rooms. Steven managed the design, construction and deployment of this booth.

While at Kurzweil, Steven participated materially in the development and marketing of the groundbreaking K2000 and K2500 V.A.S.T. Synthesizers, as well as the Mark Series Digital Keyboards and Digital Grand Pianos. Steven has been a clinician and guest lecturer for Kurzweil on the subject of electronic music and keyboard performance at universities, trade shows and music technology stores across the United States.

In 1992 Steven innovated the use of digital video technology in keyboard (synthesizer) technical support by creating a series of Video Training Manuals for Kurzweil Music Systems' synthesizers and samplers. Created for all digital keyboard lines shipped during the period from 1992 to 1999, these innovative videos were all shot and produced completely in-house. Steven also designed and built the six camera digital video production studio in the company headquarters at Young Chang America. Utilizing six fixed cameras and live switching, the live feed from the switcher and audio mixers were digitized and fed to a hard drive array. The entire post production was done on PC computers (Media 100 software). Kurzweil was the first synthesizer company to utilize this approach to using that new video technology.