Christopher Johnstone, Tom Burke join for songs, stories at CSPS Hall

The musical seeds were planted a generation ago for Christopher Johnstone at Cedar Rapids’ Coolidge Elementary. The future opera singer, who recently played the role of Magaldi on the first National Broadway tour of “Evita,” was inspired as a fifth-grader at the school, which was razed in 2021.

“Back in the day there was this amazing teacher who has since passed away,” Johnstone said while calling from New York’s Hudson River Valley. “Her name was Kathleen McNamara. I never heard of anyone else doing this but she would write a musical for the entire school every single year. She would cast the fifth-graders as the leads. Everyone had a moment to shine but the older kids got a chance to be a little bit more pro. I got to play the lead.”

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Johnstone realized he has a special voice and enjoyed singing. “That was the start of it all for me,” Johnstone said.

It’s been an incredible year for Johnstone, who has performed as a guest soloist for the Boston Pops, the Houston Symphony, Long Beach Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony and the Omaha Symphony.

It’s a homecoming for Johnstone when he and his musical partner, pianist and vocal coach Tom Burke, perform Friday, Jan. 24, and Saturday, Jan. 25, at CSPS Hall in Cedar Rapids.

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“We both view this as sort of either a thank you, or a love letter to the (Cedar Rapids) community because, you know, Christopher has always talked about this over the years about the value of mentorship that he’s had, whether it was Mrs. McNamara or in high school,” Burke said. “You go back to a community that values this type of music.”

Expect to experience quite a bit of Andrew Lloyd Webber.

“We decided to feature his songs,” Johnstone said. “Andrew Lloyd Webber is just this incredible, prolific writer for music theater. And we’re going to feature a number of different shows and songs from his whole book and we decided to do that just because a lot of his stuff lends itself to my voice and a lot of his stuff is epic. And these stories are just so wild and out there. We thought it would be fun to kind of feature him.”

The Johnstone-Burke event is part of the annual Cameron Sullenberger Overture Series. It’s a new annual event that raises funds for RTC programs and educational offerings. The series was developed in memory of Sullenberger. The musical director died in February 2023 during a rehearsal.

That’s one reason that it’s a special event for Johnstone, who graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in 1999. The other benefit is reuniting with family and old pals.

“I do have friends that are still there,” Johnstone said. “So it’s fun to connect with high school friends and the like. Oh, my gosh! (To see) what’s going on and how things have changed. There’s a lot of really cool new areas downtown. It’s exciting to see how things developed.”

Perhaps, Johnstone would still be around Cedar Rapids if it weren’t for his supportive parents and educators.

“You know, I grew up in Iowa and had amazing teachers,” Johnstone said. “I honestly wouldn’t be singing if it weren’t for the amazing teachers I had at the time. But after high school I went to college and then went on to having a career in Los Angeles and New York and some other places around the world. One of the coolest things was being able to book a couple of these national Broadway tours and still make it back to Iowa.”

Expect a loose show with anecdotes and stream of consciousness chatter from Johnstone and Burke, who complement each other well.

“We have fun with each other,” Johnstone said. “I look forward to bringing back some of the stories back home and some of the adventures that Christopher and I have had along the way.”

Johnstone will be thinking about the late, lamented Mrs. McNamara when he takes the CSPS stage. “She was such a badass teacher and she was really good with us and that’s why we had such a solid backbone,” Johnstone recalled. “That’s when I discovered I liked singing and that continued because we had amazing teachers in middle school … We were very fortunate.”

And Johnstone followed his heart and succeeded due to hard work and his considerable talent.

“I’ve been very fortunate and I get to come back to where it all started,” Johnstone said.