Dear friends,
I am on a late-August trip to the Pacific Northwest after a busy and fulfilling summer spent largely at the Marlboro Festival in Vermont, where I headed shortly after Ojai. It’s been a summer of great music and now, finally, a quiet moment to reflect on the conclusion of my time as Artistic and Executive Director of the Ojai Music Festival.
More than anything else, I am filled with gratitude. It has been one of the great enduring joys of my life to play a part in our wondrous Festival. My association has been close to continuous for most of my life, with a variety of roles which include my previous tenure as Artistic Director in the 1990s, when I worked with Pierre Boulez, Kent Nagano, John Adams, Michael Tilson Thomas, Emanuel Ax, and Daniel Harding as Music Directors. Little did I ever anticipate that I would return to lead Ojai some 30 years later. Ojai remains central in all I do and will always be a home for me.
This newest chapter has been a deeply rewarding time, renewing old friendships and making many new ones. I still shake my head at the fact that we were able to resume after a pandemic-enforced break to move the 2021 Festival to September, with every program and artist remaining unchanged. There was something particularly emotional and affecting about returning to the pure joy of listening to music together, especially in the company of John Adams as our Music Director and his forward-looking focus on a younger generation of composers. Each of the festivals since have had their many moments to treasure and discoveries that expand our musical worlds with Music Directors AMOC (American Modern Opera Company), Rhiannon Giddens, Mitsuko Uchida, and Claire Chase. And, of course, our most recent festival, led by Esa-Pekka Salonen, felt like both an exhilarating homecoming and a great full-circle moment, given our own long histories together. I can’t imagine a much better culmination of my time at Ojai!
And so the moment comes for me to take my leave. I want to express my profound gratitude to all who make our precious Festival possible, beginning with each of you, who collectively form one of the most open-eared and engaged audiences anywhere on the planet. We are so very lucky to have an exceptionally devoted Board and a host of generous donors to assure that we remain on solid footing in these uncertain times. And I would be lost without our incredible staff and Festival team, who are singular in their devotion and commitment to making everything work with such care and excellence.
As I said in my remarks at the closing concert, we are each but links in a much longer chain. It has been my profound good fortune to play a role in the stewardship of our unique musical adventure, building on endless goodwill and support as well as the tireless efforts of all those who came before us. I know that we are in very good hands in the years to come under the leadership of Teddy Abrams, who will bring renewed energy and imagination to Ojai. I can’t wait to see what the next chapters will bring!
With boundless gratitude,
Ara Guzelimian
Artistic and Executive Director