Ojai Music Festival Blog http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php Copyright 2010, No Author No Author en-US SPHPBLOG 0.5.1 Justifying our Existence http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100827-065335
The number one question that I get from friends when they learn about where I work is, "It's a year-round job?" Yes. Not only is it year-round, it is busy.

Summertime is planning time for us. We make our publication schedule, plan our Annual General Meeting, set the dates for our social events, and start work on our gala. Summer is also the time to start writing grants for the upcoming season. And while most people do spring cleaning, we always do a major clean each summer.

This year, we have the added fun of working on the new Libbey Bowl. We're finalizing the new seat configuration, getting the systems ready to sell single tickets on-line in the spring, and keeping people updated on the progress of the new structure. I hope you'll check in regularly for updates!

In the coming months, expect to hear more from us about our upcoming artists. We couldn't be more excited about this year's program, and we can't wait to share more with all of you about the innovative and exciting work that these great musicians have planned. We are looking forward to an exceptional season, and we hope you will join us.

- Christiana Thomas]]> http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100827-065335 No Author Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:53:35 GMT http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/comments.php?y=10&m=08&entry=entry100827-065335 On Watching the Bowl Come Down http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100721-130654
Watching the Bowl come down was a little bittersweet. To see how painfully easily the Bowl could be reduced to bits with nothing more powerful than a claw was a sad and clear reminder that rebuilding was a necessity if Ojai was to have any performance structure at all. As Jeff is fond of saying, "The community won, not the termites." And he's right. Tearing down the old Bowl was the first step toward something better, for both the Ojai community and the Festival family.

Are there other performance spaces where the space is such a critical element in the concert experience? For those who heard it this year, Messiaen's Vingt Regards will always and forever be about the interplay of Eric Huebner's tremendous virtuosity with Ojai's active aviary community (who behaved throughout as though the concert was being played strictly for them). Listening to the crickets chirp during Takemitsu's Rain Tree has altered how we hear that piece today. And the sound of the rustling trees has accompanied Dawn Upshaw as beautifully as any piano could.

The good news is that the new Bowl will mimic the old in many important ways. It will retain the same iconic look of the old Bowl, while adding much needed backstage space, and critical upgrades to the seating. And of course, with the many beautiful trees all around, we expect that the crickets and birds will continue to be our friendly neighbors.

Tearing down the old Bowl is the first sign of the exciting changes to come. And so we say, with great fondness and gratitude, thank you for your many years of service dear old Bowl. We won't forget you.

- Christiana Thomas ]]> http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100721-130654 No Author Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:06:54 GMT http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/comments.php?y=10&m=07&entry=entry100721-130654 Thank you for sharing four days of music with us! http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100614-145857
We'll be posting reviews and photos soon, so keep a look out!

-- Gina Gutierrez]]> http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100614-145857 No Author Mon, 14 Jun 2010 21:58:57 GMT http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/comments.php?y=10&m=06&entry=entry100614-145857 About Working with the Ensemble Modern http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100609-085547 After Ensemble Modern's arrival to LAX last night, Ojai rehearsals began at 10am this morning and are now in full swing. Ensemble Modern has their own set of assistants, who, together with our crew, execute stage changes efficiently and so far, without siginificant hitches. Today's rehearsal program has involved a Schoenberg, Stravinksy, and Benjamin piece with various combinations of about 10 or so musicians from Ensemble Modern.

I have had the privilege of driving various members back and forth between their place of stay, the Ventura Crowne PLaza Hotel, and the Libbey Bowl. My interatcions with them tell me that they are a group of down-to-earth people. No sour musicians here: everyone seems very passionate about what they do and energized to be in Ojai. One specific car trip today involved two french horn players, a trombonist and trumpeter- we crammed into my Toyota Camry at the Ventura hotel and set out for the 2o'clock rehearsal at Libbey.

I don't think I've laughed so much one car ride: Jokes abounded, songs were sung, cultural stereotypes were discussed... which brings me to my next point, that Ensemble Modern is extremely international. One might assume the Frankfurt-based ensemble would contain mostly Germans, but players also hail from Korea, Japan, Israel, and Argentina, and those are just the ones I've met. I'm impressed at the general cameraderie, the fabulous team work and the all around abundance of smiles that occur backstage. If the rest of the week is going to be anything like this first day of rehearsals, we're going to have an amazing time.

- Margaret Crites]]> http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100609-085547 No Author Wed, 09 Jun 2010 15:55:47 GMT http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/comments.php?y=10&m=06&entry=entry100609-085547 Learning from a Sarode Master http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100608-233942 When I was in high school my father took me to a screening of Monterey Pop, the well-known documentary film about the 1967 Monterey Pop Music Festival. Despite historic performances by the Who, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix (in which he famously smashed and burned his guitar on stage), what made the greatest and most lasting impression on me was Ravi Shankar’s performance of North Indian Classical music on the sitar accompanied by Alla Rakha on tabla.

In the midst of earning my Jazz Composition degree at Berklee College of Music in Boston, I decided to take a semester off and travel to India. There, Pandit Amar Nath Mishra of Banaras introduced me to the fundamentals of sitar, which has since become my principal instrument. When I returned to the US, I brought a small batch of recordings with me, including a copy of Rainy Season Ragas by Ustad Aashish Khan.

Years later, while researching potential graduate study programs, I was shocked one day to find that Aashish Khan was teaching at the California Institute of the Arts. One of the world’s most skilled and knowledgeable sarode players, Aashish ji learned primarily from his grandfather, Baba Allauddin Khan, founder of the Maihar style of music. Aside from being an accomplished and versatile performer, Allauddin Khan sahib was most well known for training a slew of world-class artists including Ustad Ali Akbar Khan (Aashish ji’s father), Pandit Nikhil Banerjee, Pandit Ravi Shankar, and of course, Ustad Aashish Khan. From his grandfather, Aashish ji learned a highly refined and polished form of musical expression, with great depth and beauty in the Alap (or unaccompanied improvisation) and incredible control and feeling in the intricate rhythms of the gats (or sections accompanied by the tabla).

Having chosen CalArts as the place to pursue my graduate education in North Indian music performance, I find myself among a handful of students who are blessed to have the opportunity to study with such a masterful musician. Just as important as Aashish Khan’s musical skill and pedigree is his devotion to teaching and his willingness to share his knowledge. From the first day, Aashish ji welcomed me and has done his best to impart as much as possible from the vast ocean of music.

It is a pleasure and honor to be accompanying my teacher on the tanpura at the Ojai Festival this year. I know that listeners familiar with Indian Classical music will enjoy his exposition of the melodies he chooses to present, and I hope that new listeners will come away feeling inspired to continue their exploration of the genre. Enjoy!

-- John Stephens

BUY TICKETS TO THE SUNDAY MORNING CONCERT HERE >> ]]> http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100608-233942 No Author Wed, 09 Jun 2010 06:39:42 GMT http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/comments.php?y=10&m=06&entry=entry100608-233942 What's special about the Ojai experience? http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100608-122422 Los Angeles Times Magazine:

“You’re in this small town. You’ve just heard a concert. You go into a coffee shop, where you see audience members, or even the artists, and overhear people debating what was just performed...Music should provoke a reaction. It’s perfectly acceptable for you to like something. It’s also acceptable for you not to like something.”
]]> http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100608-122422 No Author Tue, 08 Jun 2010 19:24:22 GMT http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/comments.php?y=10&m=06&entry=entry100608-122422 Ojai's Unique Music Director Structure http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100607-125317 ]]> http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100607-125317 No Author Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:53:17 GMT http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/comments.php?y=10&m=06&entry=entry100607-125317 That Ojai DNA - You know it when you hear it http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100605-144037
Over at the Atlanta Symphony Robert Spano has been featuring contemporary music by a group of composers that are starting to be known as the Atlanta School.

They're Atlantan not because the composers all hail from there; it's because the orchestra has made a thing of performing composers that belong to an aesthetic that the orchestra believes in. By giving the music context and suggesting clear reasons why these composers belong together, Atlanta has helped define them in a compelling way.

And guess what? After a few years of building audiences, the contemporary music programs now outsell traditional programs.

The most significant aspect of the Atlanta School project may be the trust it is building for new music in general. A semistaged version of the opera "Dr. Atomic" by American composer John Adams sold at 88% of paid capacity during the depths of the economic recession. In a reversal of usual box-office patterns, concerts with music by Atlanta School composers typically sell at about 84% of capacity, says marketing vice president Charles Wade, versus an average of 78% for other classical events.


At Ojai, the performances are assumed to be great. But the programs need to be something more as well. We have to answer questions for every piece, for every performer: why this music? Why now? This isn't a randomly assembled set of pieces or performers. They fit into some sort of tradition and aesthetic; they convey something we think is important. They provoke certain kinds of responses. There's Ojai DNA sewn into the fabric of every concert. The trick is how to make it clear even to people who are visiting for the first time.]]> http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100605-144037 No Author Sat, 05 Jun 2010 21:40:37 GMT http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/comments.php?y=10&m=06&entry=entry100605-144037 Try before you come http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100605-143514 here.]]> http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100605-143514 No Author Sat, 05 Jun 2010 21:35:14 GMT http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/comments.php?y=10&m=06&entry=entry100605-143514 Julie Jeffrey on Coming to Ojai with the Wildcat Viols http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100602-160014 When Tom Morris called me to invite Wildcat Viols to play Purcell Fantasias at Ojai, I thought it was one of those random strokes of fantastic good luck that we all dream of. As performers firmly ensconced in the early music world, we usually operate in a variety of big-fish-in-a-little-pond situations, so it was very exciting to be invited into a larger body of water! Lucky, yes, but the more I thought about it, the less random it felt – in fact, in many ways it’s the perfect fit. There are very few professional viol consorts in the world, and of those, even fewer dare to delve deeply into Purcell’s Fantasias, which are considered the most technically and musically challenging pieces in the entire two hundred years’ worth of viol consort repertoire. But it just so happens that Wildcat Viols has made a specialty of the music of Purcell and his contemporaries. And to top it off, our first recording, focusing on this amazing music, has just come out. I don’t think Tom knew all of this when he invited us to Ojai -- so maybe the luck goes both ways!

I’m intrigued by George Benjamin’s idea of juxtaposing Purcell’s Viol Fantasias with Indian ragas. I must admit my relative inexperience with Indian music, but I can see how this programming will immerse the audience in two contrasting sound worlds -- each in its way deeply intense, compelling, almost mesmerizing -- that might be less familiar to mainstream classical audiences. And it’s interesting to reflect that both Indian music and early music first appeared on this country’s radar screen at around the same time, as part of a larger, counterculture-driven interest in exploring musical worlds beyond the standard classical repertoire.

If only I could be in two places at once… I would love to experience the contrasts and similarities of our concert from the audience’s point of view. I hope we’ll get a chance to hang out and chat with audience members afterwards – I’m eager to hear what people think of George Benjamin’s unusual and ingenious programming idea.]]> http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry100602-160014 No Author Wed, 02 Jun 2010 23:00:14 GMT http://www.ojaifestival.org/blog/comments.php?y=10&m=06&entry=entry100602-160014