About
“Johnette Downing has been an outstanding ambassador for Louisiana.” - Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser
“I have had the honor of knowing Johnette throughout her career. Her commitment to sharing Louisiana’s traditions, music, and literature with our children makes her a state treasure.” - State Librarian Rebecca Hamilton.
Johnette Downing is a New Orleans multi-award winning singer, musician, composer, author, and poet presenting Louisiana Roots concerts and author visits for children, as well as keynotes and workshops for educators globally. Dedicated to celebrating childhood, nurturing cultural exchanges and fostering literacy through her music and books, Johnette has performed in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe, Central America, North America and the Caribbean. Johnette’s presentations speak to a child’s interests in an engaging, interactive, thought-provoking, educational, entertaining and culturally respectful way; earning her a reputation for being the “Musical Ambassador to Children” and the “Pied Piper of Louisiana Music Traditions.”
A Governor of the Recording Academy’s Memphis Chapter, Downing has garnered multiple awards including a 2017 Louisiana Writer Award, 59th Grammy Award Participant Certificate, eight Parents’ Choice Awards, four iParenting Media Awards, two Parent’s Guide To Children’s Media Awards, five National Parenting Publications Awards, a Family Choice Award, two Family Review Center Awards, Fids and Kamily Award, Family Review Center Gold Award, Family Review Center Best of the Year Award, DAR Literacy Promotion Award, and an Imagination Award. Her work has received rave reviews on Grammy.com and in Nick Jr. Magazine, Family Fun Magazine, Parenting Magazine, Parent’s Magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, American Library Association’s Booklist, School Library Journal, Washington Post, Early Childhood News, Cookie Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, New Orleans Magazine, and Big Apple Parent to name a few. Further, she was selected as one of “The Women of the Year 2008” by New Orleans CityBusiness Magazine, “Thirty People to Watch in 2000” by New Orleans Magazine and “Forty Under Forty” by Gambit Weekly Magazine.
Cofounder of the former New Orleans Haiku Society, Johnette is a haiku and senryu poet. Her poem “ripples in the pond” received a Haiku International Association Honorable Mention Award in Japan. She is the author of Singing Waters, A Selection of Haiku, Senryu, and Haibun (April 2022, buddha baby press), which is a collection of over one hundred of her previously published poems in one volume. Her poems has been widely published in bottle rockets, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Mayfly, Tiny Words, YAWP, Nisqually Delta Review, O’ Muse Magazine, and Pass It On, among others. Her haiku have appeared in anthologies such as Window Seats, A Cat Anthology, dust of summers: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2007, gatherings: a haiku anthology of amusement parks, 2008, dust of summers: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2007, big data: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2014, Katrina-ku-Storm Poems, and Crude Haiku - Oil Poems, as well as several Haiku Society of America and World Haiku anthologies. Johnette has taught haiku workshops at select literary festivals, libraries, schools, and conferences across the United States.
Also check out Johnette's Music Credentials, Author Credentials, Performance Highlights, and Discography.