2026 Festival in the Press

See what the press had to say about the 80th Ojai Music Festival! Click on a quote below to read the full article, and click on a photo to check out the 2026 gallery.

Once again, the Ojai Music Festival was summoning sonic bliss, as it has been doing for the past eighty years.

Alex Ross for The New Yorker

…it was a privilege to hear [Esa-Pekka Salonen] lead, as he did on Friday night, the 1943 orchestration of Schoenberg’s “Verklärte Nacht” (“Transfigured Night”), a modernist keystone and Ojai staple he rendered with such clarity and nuance that it achieved transcendence.

David Mermelstein for the Wall Street Journal

Salonen found renewal not from the desperation of rethinking but from freshening, illuminating the perception of exceptional young musicians first encountering greatness. In these uncertain times, that may be the most remarkable act of artistic optimism.

Mark Swed for the Los Angeles Times

For four days in early June, the Ojai Music Festival becomes the center of the contemporary and new music universe. Founded in 1947, this year’s festival ran June 11-14, drawing sold-out audiences. Even a heat wave didn’t deter people from trekking to this scenic little town northwest of Los Angeles.

Rick Schultz for Classical Voice North America

…it was Salonen’s ever-sharpening talent as a programmer, in tandem with retiring Executive and Artistic Director Ara Guzelimian, that made this festival special.

Richard Ginnell for San Francisco Classical Voice