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  • 2018 Festival Highlights

    2018 Festival Highlights

    “It’s like a dream to be able to play over the course of only a few days and hear my most beloved musical pieces of our time, and to share with the audience members of the most vibrant and progressive festival on the American continent – OJAI. These pieces changed my life – I hope ­ they will also find a very special place in your souls,” Patricia Kopatchinskaja, 2018 Music Director.

    The 2018 Ojai Music Festival welcomes the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in its first extended United States residency. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1997 based on the shared vision of being a free and international ensemble, dedicated to creating and sharing exceptional experiences in classical music. With 45 members spanning 20 different countries at its core, the MCO works as a nomadic collective of passionate musicians uniting for specific tours in Europe and across the world. Based in Berlin, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra forms the basis of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and has long and fruitful artistic relationships with major artists, including Ms. Kopatchinskaja and Mitsuko Uchida, Ojai’s 2021 Music Director. In Ojai, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra will be featured both as an orchestral ensemble, and showcased for the solo and chamber music artistry of its members.

    Major 2018 Festival projects include two staged concerts designed by Ms. Kopatchinskaja. The first is Bye Bye Beethoven, which she describes as a commentary on “the irrelevance of the classic concert routine for our present life.” This staged program features a mash-up of music by Charles Ives, John Cage, Joseph Haydn, György Kurtág, Johann Sebastian Bach, and the Beethoven Violin Concerto. Ms. Kopatchinskaja’s second semi-staged concert is her own provocative commentary on the inevitable consequences on the planet of global warming. Titled Dies Irae, the program includes music by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Michael Hersch, Byzantine chant, Giacinto Scelsi, and Galina Ustvolskaya’s remarkable Dies Irae for eight double basses, piano, and wooden box.

    American composer Michael Hersch will premiere at the 2018 Ojai Music Festival a new piece described by him as a dramatic cantata for two sopranos and eight instrumentalists. It will then be performed at Cal Performances’ Ojai at Berkeley and at Great Britain’s venerable Aldeburgh Festival. Mr. Hersch, who wrote a violin concerto for Ms. Kopatchinskaja two years ago, is considered one of the most gifted composers of his generation and is a formidable pianist. He currently serves on the composition faculty at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. This new work is a co-commission by the Ojai Music Festival, Cal Performances Berkeley, the Aldeburgh Festival, and PNReview, the prominent British poetry magazine at which Mr. Hersch is artist-in-residence.

    Additional programming highlights include Kurtag’s Kafka Fragments; Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat on the occasion of its centennial; major chamber and piano music by Galina Ustvolskaya; as well as Roumanian and Moldavian folk music performed by Ms. Kopatchinskaja and her parents, Viktor and Emilia Kopatchinski on cimbalom and violin. The Festival closes with the Ligeti Violin Concerto performed by Patricia Kopatchinskaja. 

    Series Passes for 2018 Ojai Music Festival
    Advance 2018 series subscriptions can be purchased here.

     

     

  • 2017 Imagine Concert featuring Nestor Torres and Student Musicians

    The annual Imagine concert in February was all about sharing music with students by students. Both the Matilija Junior High School and Nordhoff High School music students performed to a crowd of close to 500 local Ojai and Ventura-area elementary students.

    This year a special highlight was a guest appearance by GRAMMY Latin Jazz winner Nestor Torres, who performed for the students and a surprise improvisatoin session along side the student musicians.

    Photos courtesy of Kirby Russell.

     “We got to experience the excitement of improvising real jazz on the spot with an amazing player, as well as learn to listen to each other and share the spotlight to create music of our own. It also taught us to push our bodies in what we thought we were capable of doing and showed us that, just like anything else, music can be a form of communication that gives us a voice to speak our own message.”– Noah Byle, 12th grade, Nordhoff High School

    “The Imagine concert is a wonderful part of the musical culture of Ojai! The middle school performers remember attending the concert as elementary school students. They tell me with a great deal of enthusiasm about the performances they watched, and they are proud to now be part of the show. In turn, their collaboration with the high school students give them a taste of the next level of musicianship. To top it all off, the guest performers never cease to expand our idea of what is possible.” — Thomas Fredrickson, Matilija Junior High School Music Director

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  • Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble

    Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble

    OBERLIN CONTEMPORARY MUSIC ENSEMBLE

    Deemed “a hotbed of contemporary-classical players” and a “rural experimental haven” by The New York Times, Oberlin Conservatory of Music cultivates innovation in its students. In its six annual full-concert cycles, Oberlin’s Contemporary Music Ensemble (CME), directed by Timothy Weiss, performs music of all contemporary styles and genres: from minimalism to serialism, to electronic, cross genre, mixed media, and beyond.

    CME has worked with many prominent composers including George Crumb, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Stephen Hartke, Helmut Lachenmann, David Lang, Joan Tower, Frederic Rzewski, and others, and has premiered many of their works. CME also regularly premieres works by Oberlin faculty, student, and alumni composers.

    Each year, some of the most well-regarded contemporary music icons perform as soloists with CME, including Jennifer Koh (Oberlin College 1997), Claire Chase (Oberlin Conservatory 2001), David Bowlin (Oberlin Conservatory 2000), Tony Arnold (Oberlin Conservatory 1990), Marilyn Nonken, Stephen Drury, Steven Schick, and Ursula Oppens. Distinguished students receive opportunities to perform as soloists with the ensemble as well.

     CME presents an annual concert series at the Cleveland Museum of Art and regularly tours the United States. In recent years, the group has performed at the Winter Garden, Miller Theater, Merkin Concert Hall, DiMenna Center, Harvard University, Benaroya Hall, Palace of Fine Arts, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. CME has also been featured on a number of commercial recordings, including John Luther Adams’ In the White Silence (New World Records), Lewis Nielson’s Écritures: St. Francis Preaches to the Birds (Centaur Records), and in several releases on the Oberlin Music label.

    For more than two decades, Timothy Weiss has been music director of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble and has brought the group to a level of artistry and virtuosity in performance that rivals the finest new music groups. A committed educator, Weiss is professor of conducting and chair of the Division of Contemporary Music at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he helped create and mentor Eighth Blackbird and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). He has gained critical acclaim for his performances and brave, adventurous programming throughout the United States and abroad. His repertoire in contemporary music is vast and fearless, including masterworks, very recent compositions, and an impressive number of premieres and commissions. His work has been honored with an Adventurous Programming Award from the League of American Orchestras.

    Individual Students

    Senior violinist Christa Cole currently studies at Oberlin Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of David Bowlin. She made her solo debut with the Meridian Symphony Orchestra in 2012 playing the Saint-Saëns Violin Concerto, and recently performed Shulamit Ran’s Violin Concerto with the Oberlin Orchestra. While a student
     at Oberlin, she has performed Joan Tower’s Night Fields in the Orientation Recital, and Shulamit Ran’s Inscriptions in the Danenberg Honors Recital. Over the summers, she has received quartet fellowships at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chamber Music Institute and Credo Chamber Music Camp, and has attended Madeline Island Chamber Music Camp and the Round Top Festival Institute. Cole has performed in master classes for Christian Tetzlaff, Punch Brothers, Charles Castleman, Rachel Barton-Pine, and Stephen Shipps. She actively pursues scholarship in music theory, and plans to begin her graduate studies in music theory in the fall of 2017.

     

     

    Junior Toby Elser began his violin studies at the age of 5 in Ithaca, N.Y. Since 2014, Elser has been pursuing his bachelor’s degree in violin performance under the instruction of Marilyn McDonald at Oberlin Conservatory. He has attended summer music festivals at Bowdoin, Roundtop, Zodiac, and Madeline Island.

     

     

    Adam Jeffreys is entering his senior year as a violinist in the studio of David Bowlin at Oberlin Conservatory.  Last year, he participated in Oberlin’s 150th anniversary tour, taking part in outreach efforts at various schools in Chicago and in Oberlin Orchestra’s performance at Symphony Hall. In 2015, at the Roundtop Orchestral Institute, he was the Texas Festival Orchestra’s principal second violinist, which collaborated with guest artists Nicholas Kitchen and Stefan Milenkovich. In 2014, Jeffreys attended the Aria Institute and performed in masterclasses for Felicia Moye, Gregory Fulkerson, Hal Grossman, and Sibbi Bernhardsson. In addition to the violin, Jeffreys has a strong interest in Soviet-era history. In 2015, he gave a lecture on sensory blending in Socialist Realist art, literature, and music at Oberlin College’s Synaesthesia Symposium.

    Violinist Dana Johnson is in her final year pursuing a bachelor’s degree at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music as a student of Milan Vitek.  Johnson has dedicated much of her time to new music, performing student compositions, playing as a principal in Oberlin’s Contemporary Music Ensemble, and as a member of the student-run contemporary music collective, Semble N.  Johnson has soloed with the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, and has served as concertmaster of the Oberlin Orchestra and the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra. She has participated in festivals around the world, including soundSCAPE (Italy), the Litomysl Violin Masterclass (Czech Republic), Le Domaine Forget (Canada), and the Bowdoin International Music Festival.  Johnson performed at the Kennedy Center with her string trio, Trio Ligatura, and has worked with or performed in master classes for Christian Tetzlaff, Pinchas Zukermann, Frank Huang, Yura Lee, Mark Fewer, The Punch Brothers, and the Calder, Cavani, and Ariel Quartets.

     

    Originally from the Washington D.C. area, John Kirchenbauer is a violinist at Oberlin College and Conservatory. He studies with Professor Milan Vitek and has participated heavily in the 20th-century and contemporary music ensembles at Oberlin. In recent summers, he attended the Meadowmount School of Music, Aria Summer Academy, and Litomysl International Master Class. Also a student in Oberlin’s College of Arts and Sciences, Kirchenbauer is interested in applied math and science and plans to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Engineering at one of Oberlin’s partner universities starting in the fall of 2017.

     

    A native of Loveland, Colo., Jeremy Kreutz is a student of Darrett Adkins at Oberlin Conservatory of Music. He has studied with Brinton Smith, Benjamin Karp, and Katherine Azari. In addition to his attendance of the Brevard Music Festival, Round Top Festival Institute, and the Aspen Music Festival’s orchestral fellowship program, Kreutz was the assistant principal cellist of Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the USA (NYO-USA) in 2014, joining musicians such as David Robertson and Gil Shaham for a coast-to-coast tour of the United States. In his free time he also enjoys hiking, running, and reading, and he looks to continue studying German in Oberlin’s language department.

     

    Benjamin Merte began playing the double bass at age ten in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is currently in his fourth year attending Oberlin Conservatory, where he studies with Cleveland Orchestra member Scott Dixon. Merte is an active performer of classical and contemporary music, and frequently performs new music for the double bass.

     

     

    A native of Hong Kong, Pok Yee (Pauline) Ng started violin studies at a young age and has won major prizes at the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival, including first prize in Violin Solo, and second prize in the categories of Violin Sonata and Violin Concerto. Ng is currently a senior pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in violin performance and composition at the Oberlin Conservatory under the tutelage of Professor Milan Vitek and Professor Stephen Hartke, respectively. Her original compositions, Yin-Yang for solo violin and Lí (☲) 離 for solo cello, have been performed in Oberlin Conservatory showcase concerts, including the Orientation Recital, Danenberg Honors Recital, and the Oberlin at Oakton series. In addition, Ng is a recipient of the Diploma of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in Violin Performance and is the Young Composer-in-Residence of the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings for the 2016-2017 season.

    A double degree student at Oberlin College and Conservatory, Corey Worley studies viola under Peter Slowik and majors in psychology. Worley has soloed with the Benefic Chamber Orchestra and the Credo Brandenburg Ensemble. Passionate about chamber music, he has collaborated with Dimitri Ashkenazy, Mark Fewer, Felix Fan; as a member of Trio Ligatura, he has performed at the Kennedy Center and on WCLV. Worley has attended National Art Centre’s Young Artists Program, Talis Festival and Academy, Sejong Music Festival, and Domaine Forget.  He has performed in master classes led by Heidi Castleman, Jean Sulem, and Dimitri Murrath, as well as the Mivos, Emerson, and Cavani Quartets. An advocate for contemporary music, Worley was a visiting artist for the Madison New Music Festival, has premiered many works, and studied under Garth Knox and members of Ensemble InterContemporain. A Youth Advisory Council member (American Viola Society), Worley is committed to viola education and scholarship.

  • Julian Terrell Otis, tenor

    Julian Terrell Otis, tenor

    Julian Terrell Otis is proud to reunite with “this trio of impressive vocal soloists” (New York Times) in the West Coast premiere of Afterword. He has become an enthusiastic interpreter of contemporary music. Most recently lending his ringing tenor sound to Anthony R. Green’s …I Shall Shake His Hand… curated by Fulcrum Point New Music Project and Nkeiru Okoye’s Harriet Tubman: When I Cross That Line to Freedom (South Shore Opera Company). As a student Julian was able to explore the choral works of Ted Hearne, James MacMillan, Sebastian Currier and other contemporary composers under the baton of Donald Nally. Julian wishes to explore the limitless possibilities of his instrument’s expressive capacity through song, improvisation, and theatrical works.

    Visit www.julianterrellotis.com.

  • Joelle Lamarre, soprano

    Joelle Lamarre, soprano

    Joelle Lamarre, (soprano, actress and playwright) is thrilled to be joining George Lewis (a Guggenheim Fellowship winner) and Sean Griffin one more time with Afterwords for its west coast premiere at the Ojai 2017 Summer Festival. Afterword, an opera developed with Sean Griffin and Catherine Sullivan, constitutes an aesthetic extension of George E. Lewis’s 2008 book, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (University of Chicago Press). (more…)

  • BRAVO Alumnus: Kari Francis

    BRAVO Alumnus: Kari Francis

    As a freelance musician living and working in New York City, it has become unquestionably clear that being from Ojai is as distinctive a part of my background as my primary instrument or the schools I attended. Collaborating as often as I do with other musicians, the response I typically hear from those who have visited the valley or attended the Music Festival is something along the lines of: “Wait, you’re actually from there?” Ojai, even in the minds of those who have only briefly experienced it, is a kind of otherworldly oasis.

    Growing up in Ojai, I now realize, was similarly uncommon in its richness of exposure to the arts and artists. My first musical memories are of my father plunking out bass lines on our upright piano in preparation for rehearsals with his singing group, Madrigali. A long-standing Ojai treasure, Madrigali remains a charming, lively vocal ensemble under the vibrant direction of Jaye Hersh. As a child, I sang with Madrigali’s youth incarnation, Harmonia Mundi. Both groups were particularly active in the summers, when we gave concerts on the Libbey Bowl lawn and provided incidental music for the Ojai Shakespeare Festival’s annual productions. In retrospect, performing with Madrigali and Harmonia Mundi laid the foundation for my love of vocal timbres, a cappella singing, and tight harmonies—elements very much alive in my work today.

    Additionally, I took piano lessons at the Suzuki Piano School of Ojai with Patricia Bean, who patiently taught me foundational keyboard skills that continue to permeate every aspect of my teaching. I first put those skills to use in the (now-defunct) Ojai Lutheran Church, where the congregation would caringly listen to my attempts to concertize. It was also at that church that I had the good fortune to play and sing in the worship band with Bill Wagner, who exemplified well-rounded musicianship in wearing the many hats of vocalist, keyboardist, trumpet player, band leader, improviser, arranger, and more. Perhaps most importantly, the ethos of the band was simple: using our musical talents to give back to our little community, a sentiment I have seen echoed across the work of many Ojai musicians. This was similarly evident in the BRAVO Program’s involvement in local schools with presentations (such as the instrument “petting zoo”), which were perceptibly driven by a love of and belief in the value of spending part of one’s day or week being musical.

    I was lucky to keep working with Bill Wagner and Jaye Hersh in the ensembles at Nordhoff High School, where the two comprised an effective team that ran a small music department with big ambitions—and, as evidenced by a packed trophy case and endless award plaques, nearly always exceeded them. I can still recall how large the seniors loomed—many of whom have gone on to successful performing careers—while still a freshman struggling to hold up my cymbals in marching band. Taking part in numerous instrumental and vocal groups at Nordhoff, I was fortunate to also play percussion with the Ojai Youth Symphony headed by Andy Radford, where I got my first taste of performing orchestral classics.

    Wallflower that I was, it is nothing short of a miracle that Bill, Jaye, and Andy were able to look past my painfully shy exterior and encourage a budding musician who has now, in turn, taught hundreds of students. Underlying all of this, my parents, Wayne and Jackie Francis, have tirelessly supported my zigzagging music career, and even now continue to volunteer with the Festival and find ways to sustain Ojai’s musical livelihood. While I believe these individuals had the strength of character to encourage me regardless of their surroundings, I also think a certain artistic essence holds sway in the collective Ojai mindset, making this kind of boundless support by valley citizens the norm rather than the exception.

    The more I teach, the more I have come to see music-making as a practice that not only transcends a single class or academic subject, but is a foundational part of the human experience. While studying Edwin Gordon’s Music Learning Theory in my master’s program, one line in the teacher’s manual would often jump out: It is important to remember that everyone has the potential to achieve in music, and some students have the potential to achieve more in music than in any other subject. While the extrinsic benefits of studying music are many (and perhaps among the most commonly touted, such as learning soft skills like confidence, discipline, cooperation, etc.), music-making is, at its core, intrinsically worthwhile: it provides an outlet for expressing oneself through singing, playing, and moving to music in ways no other subjects or practices can replicate or replace. Applying aesthetics to performance, it can provide a window to another time, tradition, or culture, and as music-makers we can discuss how to integrate new and different ideas into our playing and, ultimately, our lives. “Harmony,” already a rich interpersonal concept, enjoys added depth and necessity in musical contexts.

    The farther my career has taken me from Ojai, the more comforting it has been to discover reminders of the valley sprinkled across various music communities, such as a composition professor sporting a Music Festival cap, or hearing east coast colleagues wistfully describe playing in past Festivals. When I visit the valley now, it hurts to see that some programs that were so formative in my early musical life have faded. However, it is also heartening that programs such as BRAVO are thriving and growing, and I have no doubt the Ojai Valley will continue to nurture its artists into the future.

    • Kari Francis

    BA in Music Theory/Composition, UC San Diego
    MA, Music Education (Vocal/General), Eastman School of Music

    Dubbed “the next generation of a cappella specialist” by Pitch Perfect and The Sing-Off vocal producer Deke Sharon, Kari Francis is an avid vocalist, arranger, and educator. She has shared the stage with Taylor Swift, Imogen Heap, and competed on Season 3 of NBC’s The Sing-Off with Kinfolk 9. She currently directs the contemporary a cappella ensemble at CUNY Hunter College and is a choral teaching artist with Midori & Friends. Kari has been an active lecturer and clinician since 2009, giving workshops on musicianship, arranging, and vocal percussion at music festivals and vocal camps across the States.

  • Vijay Iyer on Ojai 2017

    Vijay Iyer on Ojai 2017

  • Ojai Music Festival and WQXR’s Q2 Music present an evening of performance and discussion at The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space in New York on April 13, 2017

    Ojai Music Festival and WQXR’s Q2 Music present an evening of performance and discussion at The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space in New York on April 13, 2017

    Ojai’s 2017 Music Director Vijay Iyer and Q2 Music Host Helga Davis will highlight the upcoming Festival, along with Jennifer Koh, George Lewis, Wadada Leo Smith, and Tyshawn Sorey      

    For tickets to the April 13, 7:00pm event, visit TheGreeneSpace.org or watch a live video stream of the event at Q2Music.org 

    “I’m honored, as Music Director of the 2017 Ojai Music Festival, to convene this gathering of some of the most brilliant and important music-makers that I know. Our evening of music and conversation at The Greene Space offers a glimpse of the scope of this four-day event in Southern California, with a few of the incredible artists who will be on hand: George Lewis, whose opera Afterword will have its west coast premiere at the Festival; composer-trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, a collaborator and mentor of mine, will join me in duets from our project A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke; the dazzling violinist Jennifer Koh will perform some of the ancient and cutting-edge solo music from her sprawling repertoire; and multi-instrumentalist-composer Tyshawn Sorey will offer some of his latest creations.”  – Vijay Iyer, 2017 Music Director

    (OJAI, CA – March 29, 2017) — In advance of the upcoming 2017 Ojai Music Festival (June 8-11), the Festival and media partner WQXR’s Q2 Music present an evening of discussion and performance on April 13, at 7pm, at The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space in New York as part of their three-year partnership.

    Q2’s Helga Davis will host Ojai Music Director Vijay Iyer to discuss and explore the upcoming 2017 Festival. Joining Mr. Iyer in performance and conversation will be violinist Jennifer Koh, composer/trombonist George Lewis, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, and composer/percussionist Tyshawn Sorey.

    Helga Davis, also a 2017 Ojai Music Festival artist in Courtney Bryan’s Yet Unheard, will focus the April 13 evening around the intersection of music composed and improvised. The Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM) has engaged this dichotomy since its inception, and the AACM serves as an underlying thread in the April 13 event as well as the upcoming Ojai Music Festival. The evening will feature solo performances by Vijay Iyer and duets by Mr. Iyer and Tyshawn Sorey, as well as Mr. Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith in excerpts from their acclaimed release A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke. Rounding out the evening, Jennifer Koh will perform Esa-Pekka Salonen’s chaconne for solo violin Lachen verlernt (Laughing Unlearnt). Composer George Lewis will join the artists in discussion with Ms. Davis.

    This marks the second year of Ojai Music Festival events presented by Q2 Music at The Greene Space. Last spring’s event featured Ojai’s 2016 Music Director Peter Sellars, guitarist of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) Dan Lippel, soprano Julia Bullock, and vocalist/pianist Leila Adu. The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space’s mission is to galvanize conversations around the life, arts, and politics of New York and our world.

    Tickets, April 13 at 7pm
    Tickets for the event are $20 and can be purchased at TheGreeneSpace.org where the event will be webcast live.

    Ojai Music Festival and WQXR’s Q2 Partnership 
    Launched in 2015, additional highlights of the 2017 partnership with WQXR’s Q2 Music feature immersive access to select new music concerts at Q2Music.org beginning May 1, 2017, as well as a three-part series of special programs showcasing performances from the 2016 Festival, hosted by Ojai’s 2016 Music Director Peter Sellars. Q2 Music audiences can also access performances from prior Festivals with hosts Mark Morris (2013 Music Director) and Steven Schick (2015 Music Director). Imagined as a multiyear collaboration, the Festival and Q2 Music aim to celebrate a shared artistic aesthetic, build audiences and connect respective communities.

    About Q2 Music 
    Q2 Music is WQXR’s online platform dedicated to contemporary classical composers, innovative ensembles and musical discovery. Its programming includes immersive festivals, insightful commentary from hosts such as composer Phil Kline and vocalist Helga Davis, full-length album streams, live webcasts and exclusive concert audio from local and national venues, and special events in front of live audiences at The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WQXR in downtown New York City. Q2 Music produces Meet the Composer with host Nadia Sirota, a Peabody Award-winning interview podcast which mines the brains of today’s leading composers, as well as LPR Live, a podcast which shares dynamic new-music performances from Greenwich Village’s Le Poisson Rouge. Q2 Music is streamed live 24/7 at WQXR.org/Q2Music and is also available via the free WQXR App.

    Ojai Music Festival, June 8-11, 2017

    Of the upcoming Ojai Music Festival, Vijay Iyer commented, “When I was invited to take on the role of Music Director for the 2017 Ojai Music Festival, it was a shocking but validating proposition. As an artist, I like to insert myself into situations where some might not necessarily imagine I belong. I have many different affinities musically, and also very real associations across different musical communities, generations, geographic locations, and traditions that speak to me and through me. Our 2017 Festival feels like a good opportunity to update the idea of what music is today. I know the hallowed history of this Festival and I’ve seen different versions of what it can be. I’m just glad that Tom Morris invited me to intervene, and to bring my people with me. I’m going to learn so much over those few days in June, and I believe everyone there will discover a great deal – not just about music, but about themselves.” 

    For complete 2017 Ojai Music Festival information, please see the Festival calendar at OjaiFestival.org. Experience the Festival in Ojai (June 8-11) or remotely via Ojai Live webcast (June 8-11); or visit Ojai at Berkeley (June 15-17).

    Ojai Music Festival Tickets 
    Festival single tickets \ may be purchased online at OjaiFestival.org or by calling (805) 646-2053. Tickets range from $40 to $150 for reserved seating and are $15 for lawn tickets. Student and group discounts are also available.

    Directions to Ojai and performance venues, as well as information regarding lodging, a concierge service, and other Ojai activities, are also available on the Ojai Music Festival web site.

    Ojai Live webcast of 2017 Festival 
    Ojai Live begins on Thursday, June 8 with the evening concert at Libbey Bowl. The dynamic multi-camera live webcast brings the Ojai Music Festival to audiences around the world with live broadcasts of performances and interview segments. Watch Ojai Live at OjaiFestival.org.

    Ojai at Berkeley 
    Marking the seventh year of artistic partnership, Ojai at Berkeley celebrates the dynamic nature of the Ojai Music Festival and of Cal Performances. As two distinct communities, Ojai and Berkeley are both known for intrepid artistic discovery, spirited intellect, and enduring engagement in the arts. Inaugurated in 2011, Ojai at Berkeley is a joint force that enables co-commissions and co-productions and allows artists to achieve more than could be imagined by each organization separately. Ojai at Berkeley follows the 2017 Ojai Music Festival and will take place from June 15-17 in Berkeley, CA. For more information visit CalPerformances.org.

    Vijay Iyer, 2017 Ojai Music Festival Music Director 
    Composer-pianist Vijay Iyer is the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts at Harvard University. He was named Downbeat Magazine’s Jazz Artist of the Year for 2012, 2015, and 2016, and he received a 2016 US Artists Fellowship, 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, a 2012 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, and a 2011 Grammy nomination. He has released twenty-one albums, including A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke (ECM, 2016) in duo with legendary composer-trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, named “Best New Music” by Pitchfork; Break Stuff (ECM, 2015) with the Vijay Iyer Trio, winner of the German Record Critics’ Award for Album of the Year; the live score to the film RADHE RADHE: Rites of Holi (ECM, 2014) by filmmaker Prashant Bhargava; and Holding it Down: The Veterans’ Dreams Project (Pi Recordings, 2013), his third politically searing collaboration with poet-performer Mike Ladd, named Album of the Year in the Los Angeles Times.

    Mr. Iyer’s compositions have been commissioned and premiered by Bang on a Can All-Stars, The Silk Road Ensemble, Ethel, Brentano Quartet, Brooklyn Rider, Imani Winds, American Composers Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Chamber Orchestra Leopoldinum, Matt Haimowitz, and Jennifer Koh. Mr. Iyer serves as Director of the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music.

    About the Ojai Music Festival 
    From its founding in 1947, the Ojai Music Festival has created a place for groundbreaking musical experiences, bringing together innovative artists and curious audiences in an intimate, idyllic setting 80 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The Festival presents broad-ranging programs in unusual ways with an eclectic mix of rarely performed music, refreshing juxtapositions of musical styles, and works by today’s composers. The four-day festival is an immersive experience with concerts, free community events, symposia, and gatherings. Considered a highlight of the international music summer season, Ojai has remained a leader in the classical music landscape for seven decades.

    Through its unique structure of the Artistic Director appointing an annual Music Director, Ojai has presented a “who’s who” of music including Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, Olivier Messiaen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kent Nagano, Pierre Boulez, John Adams, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Spano, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, David Robertson, Eighth Blackbird, George Benjamin, Dawn Upshaw, Leif Ove Andsnes, Mark Morris, Jeremy Denk, Steven Schick, and Peter Sellars.

    The Festival, which enters its 71st year in 2017, is a nonprofit organization based in Ojai, California. David Nygren serves as the board chairman, Jamie Bennett is the president, and Thomas W. Morris serves as Artistic Director.

  • Visit the Gray Center for more information

  • Pauchi Sasaki, Composer

    Pauchi Sasaki, Composer

    Described by The Wire as an artist “unafraid of working within different disciplines and stylistic constraints”; Pauchi Sasaki’s interdisciplinary approach integrates musical composition with the design of multimedia performances, the application of new technologies, and the development of self-designed instruments seeking the embodiment of electronic music performance. A composer, performer and improviser, her music recreates intimate subjective landscapes through electro-acoustic sonorities mixed with field recordings and synthesis, influenced by improvisational aesthetics and ethnic musical traditions.

    An active film scorer, “Pauchi Sasaki’s effective scores” [Variety] are also featured in more than 30 feature and short films that earned her three “Best Original Score” awards from Festival de Cinema Latino Americano di Trieste in Italy (2015); CONACINE, National Film Council of Peru (2013); and Filmocorto (2011). She also received the Ibermúsicas Latin American grant for sound composition with new technologies at CMMAS-México (2015); The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, becoming the protégé of American composer Philip Glass (2016), and the Goethe-Institut’s artist residency at Salvador-Bahia (2017).

    Pauchi studied with César Bolaños, Ali Akbar Khan, Maggi Payne, John Bischoff, Fred Frith, Chris Brown, James Fei, Laetitia Sonami, Les Stuck and Pauline Oliveros. She holds a BA degree in Journalism from PUCP in Lima-Perú, and an MFA degree in Recording Media and Experimental Music from Mills College in Oakland, California. She has performed at the Tokyo Experimental Festival, The Mario Testino Museum [MATE], the Art Basel Miami week, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart, The Kitchen, among other venues.

    www.pauchi.com

  • Vijay Iyer, 2017 Music Director

    Vijay Iyer, 2017 Music Director

  • A letter from Artistic Director Tom Morris

    Dear Friends:

    It is hard to believe that the 2017 Ojai Music Festival is only seven weeks away.

    My excitement really began to build three weeks ago at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, which has produced so many outstanding Festival artists. The Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble and Oberlin graduate Jennifer Koh will make their Ojai Music Festival debuts on June 8 for the world premiere Vijay Iyer’s violin concerto Trouble (the Ojai Music Festival, Cal performances in Berkeley, and the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood commissioned the work). Workshops of new pieces are a marvelous way for the composer and performers to work out any changes or modifications. We last did this with Jeremy Dank/Steven Stucky’s The Classical Style in 2014.  In preparation for the world premiere of Trouble, Oberlin graciously produced an intense week of workshops conducted by Tim Weiss. Vijay himself was present for most of the week, and we were treated to two workshop performances, the first in Oberlin on April 7, and later at the Cleveland Museum of Art on April 9. Both times, audiences cheered the evolving concerto. The piece is fiendishly difficult but extremely moving and powerful. Jenny Koh was masterful.

    Continuing our partnership with Oberlin, nine string members of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble will join ICE in Trouble, Vijay’s Emergence for Ensemble and Trio, and Courtney Bryan’s Yet Unheard.  

    Last week, I witnessed another stunning event. When Vijay and I began planning the Festival two years ago, he said very early on that he had always wanted to work with Indian singer Aruna Sairam (who was in Ojai last year), and master tabla player Zakir Hussain. I love challenges like this so we put an event together for Sunday, June 11 at 1pm featuring these three artists plus the incredible saxophonist and longtime Iyer collaborator Rudresh Mahanthappa. Since the initial idea, Vijay worked once in Banff with Zakir and also with Aruna, but these four master musicians have never performed together – Zakir and Aruna have never collaborated. It turned out all were available for a rehearsal in New York on April 11 in a small studio on 46th Street. I was lucky to be present and witnessed music history being born. The sheer artistry and energy of these four was incredible, and watching them construct a new musical program for Ojai was thrilling. One of the astonishing things about great artists is how little they have to talk, since their shared artistry communicates on such an instinctive, natural level. The Festival concert on June 11 is not to be missed as they publically perform together for the first time. All have stated unequivocally that this will not the be the last time they work together. Based on what I witnessed, the future for this group is bright indeed.

    Finally, as part of our partnership, WQXR/Q2 in New York presented a public performance in The Greene Space on April 13. The space was packed, and the event was streamed live. Featured were conversations and performances by Vijay Iyer, Jennifer Koh, George Lewis, Tyshawn Sorey, and Rudresh Mahanthappa. The event was hosted by Q2’s Helga Davis, who herself will be soprano soloist in Ojai this year in Courtney Bryan’s Yet Unheard. The program gives a very good preview of the artistry and collaborative energy of these wonderful artists. You can view the event below:

    Three weeks and counting – we are in for a great treat.

     

    • Tom Morris, Artistic Director  

  • Density & The Inner Spectrum of Variables

    On Friday, June 9 at 1:00pm, the Ojai Music Festival features selections from Claire Chase’s ambitious Density 2036 project and Tyshawn Sorey Double Trio’s The Inner Spectrum of Variables.

    Density 2036

    Here is an overview of the Density 2036 project, taken from Claire Chase’s website:

    Density 2036 is a 22-year project begun by Claire Chase in 2014 to commission an entirely new body of repertory for solo flute each year until the 100th Anniversary of Edgard Varèse’s groundbreaking 1936 flute solo, Density 21.5. Each season between 2014-2036, Claire will premiere a new 60-minute program of solo flute work commissioned that year in a special performance at The Kitchen in New York City and on tour in select cities thereafter. Additionally, each cycle of works (Density 2014, Density 2015, Density 2020, etc) will be released in their world premiere recordings annually, and scores, performance notes and materials be made available digitally as educational resources for flutists everywhere.

    Every three years of the cycle (Density 2016, Density 2019, etc) a retrospective event will be held in which Claire will perform cumulative concerts of all Density work commissioned up until that date. In 2036, a 24-hour marathon will take place.

    Chase just won the Avery Fisher Prize, which is awarded every few years to recognize musical excellence, vision and leadership. Read this New York Times article for more information on Density 2036 and this exciting announcement. 

    On Friday Afternoon, Chase begins her performance with Edgard Varèse’s Density 21.5, the 1936 solo mentioned above. In this concert, she will play pieces composed by Ojai artists, including Tyshawn Sorey’s Bertha’s Lair and Vijay Iyer’s Flute Goals for tape. Chase’s performance will also feature… you! We are seeking patrons who would like to participate in Marcos Balter’s Pan. No musical training or experience is necessary! Participants will play tuned wine glasses, ocarinas, chimes, triangles, and other small handheld percussion instruments. 

    The rehearsal will take place Thursday, June 8 from 3:15 to 4:00. This means that participants will not be able to attend the Thursday Ojai Talks. 

    If you’d like to perform or request more information about Pan, please contact info@ojaifestival.org  

    The Inner Spectrum of Variables 

     

    From the liner notes of The Inner Spectrum of Variables CD: 

    Composed in 2015, The Inner Spectrum of Variables is an extended composition that deals with variables in improvisation and structure, the main ingredients that make each performance unique. The work draws from a breadth of influences, considers diversity in improvisational approach (e.g., open, modal, gestural, conducted, prescribed, relational), and structurally deals with multiple harmonic, formal, and rhythmic strategies. Inspired largely by the work of improviser-composers Butch Morris, Harold Budd, and Anthony Braxton, as well as Ethiopian modal jazz, klezmer, and Western art music traditions, Variables is a highly flexible score that can be performed in a myriad of ways. The version heard on this recording employs conducted improvisation (the score contains a lexicon of visual cues for the conductor to use at any point during a given performance to enable real-time improvisation), but the work can also be realized with the performers following prescribed directives for improvisation or without any improvisation at all. I hope that you will enjoy the experience, and I thank you for listening.

    • Tyshawn Sorey 

     

    Considering the piece’s flexibility, the performance on Friday will have a unique character, operating differently from the recording. 

    Sorey, who made his Festival debut in 2016, is an accomplished composer, drummer, pianist, improviser, trombonist, and more. Among his features in the upcoming Festival, we are excited about Conduction – an “improvised duet for ensemble and conductor”, which was developed by Butch Morris. The ensemble responds to the conductor’s signals and gestures, creating a new piece of music in real time. Conduction will be a part of the Saturday Afternoon Concert. 

  • Rock the Glass: Ojai Music Festival’s Notetini

    Rock the Glass: Ojai Music Festival’s Notetini

     

  • Update from Artistic Director Tom Morris about Afterword

     

    Dear friends:

    Musical preparations resumed for the 2017 Ojai Music Festival in Chicago over the past two days with staging rehearsals with our three wonderful singers – Joelle Lamarre, Gwendolyn Brown, and Julian Otis – for George Lewis’ Afterword. The opera, which receives its West Coast Premiere in Ojai on Friday June 9, tells the story of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (the “AACM”) in poetically allegorical form. Rather than assign a large cast of singers to play specific characters in the AACM’s history, George Lewis ingeniously gave three vocalists the task of expressing the ideas that inspired the emergence of the organization. The opera also includes an ensemble of eight musicians from ICE conducted by Steven Schick.

    The staging rehearsals were directed by Sean Griffin, our stage director, ably assisted by Narda Alcorn, our production stage manager. Sean, Narda, and the three singers were all involved in the three previous performances of the opera in fall of 2015 in Chicago, Poland, and England, so they have lived with the work.

    The Ojai and Berkeley performances will be semi-staged with a simply stylized set. It was remarkable in Chicago to see the story vividly come to life through these three singers who each deeply inhabit the roles. The music is fierce and powerful, befitting the subject. I was overwhelmed with the raw emotion of the story told as if it were being experienced in real time. We are in for a very emotional evening. 

    The AACM is a common thread throughout this year’s festival. Vijay Iyer traces much of his music through the group and its members. Indeed, many of our artists and composers this year have active relationships with the organization – Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Braxton, Tyshawn Sorey, Nicole Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, and of course George Lewis, who in addition to being a distinguished performer and composer and teacher, wrote the definitive biography of the AACM A Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music.  

    Preceding the performance of Afterword on Friday evening June 9 at 8pm will be a special Ojai Talks moderated by Ara Guzelimian on the Libbey Bowl stage at 7pm. The talk is entitled The AACM: Ongoing Impact. We are honored to have a distinguished panel of AACM founding members Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, as well as Tyshawn Sorey and Claire Chase.  The evening will be a historic and moving  opportunity to learn about, and experience through music, this remarkable chapter in the history of American music. On Sunday June 11 at 10am in the Libbey Bowl, Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell and George Lewis unite as The Trio in a free and open-to-the-community performance. Not to be missed.

    The power of these incredible artists and their music came vividly to life in Chicago these past few days. I look forward with great anticipation to two days of rehearsals with the full instrumental forces in New York May 22 and 23. And then onward to Ojai.

    • Tom Morris, Artistic Director
  • 2017 Ojai Music Festival Program Notes

    2017 Ojai Music Festival Program Notes

    A Message from the Music Director

    Thank you for joining us for these very special days and nights of music in Ojai. After two years of planning, we’ve somehow managed to gather dozens of my favorite artists: creative visionaries across generations, geographies, and histories, every one of them beyond category.

    I am honored to be a featured composer and pianist throughout this Festival, but I’m even more pleased to report that it’s not all about me. You will find many other recurring themes over the weekend: improvisation and “real-time” music making; American experimentalism; radically inventive composer-performers; non-European musical systems; dialogue between the past and the present; collective struggles against racism and oppression; and central to all of this, the legacy of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).

    You will recognize some performers and composers from past Festivals (Aruna Sairam, Tyshawn Sorey, Steven Schick, George Lewis, ICE), and you will meet others whose sounds are new to Ojai (Jen Shyu, Courtney Bryan, and myself). You will meet legendary elders (Zakir Hussain, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Roscoe Mitchell) and younger upstarts (Steve Lehman, Rudresh Mahanthappa, and Cory Smythe). You will hear state-of-the-art interpreters (Jennifer Koh, Brentano Quartet, Claire Chase, and Helga Davis) and wizardly real-time creators (Graham Haynes, Wadada Leo Smith, Nicole Mitchell, and Mark Shim). You will hear music as object—composed opuses, whether finished centuries ago or with ink still fresh—and you will hear music as process—the sonic choices of networks of actors moving in relation to each other and to their environment. And you might notice that—to some degree, every musical performance contains both of these elements.

    By now you’ve probably heard or read my suggestion that we should replace the word “genre” with “community”—a very different word, concerned not with styles, but with people. I realize that the latter has become a no-less-hackneyed term, wishful and forced, invoked too often. With this distinction I only meant to point out a simple truth about music: In listening to each other, we become connected. When done with patience and compassion, listening can elicit recognition of the other as a version of one’s own self. This kind of empathic listening shakes us out of our habitual role as musical “consumers,” by reminding us that music is the sound of human action, and not a disembodied substance. It de-centers “the composer” as the primary actor in music, and reorients us instead towards the shared present: being together in time. Empathic listening begins to bring all of us in, music makers and observers alike, towards a shared purpose.

    Here we find common cause with Judith Butler’s Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, her recent far-reaching meditations on the politics inherent in the act of gathering. When we, as assembled bodies, are able to theorize a common purpose—to reflect upon ourselves, or to dream together, if you prefer—that is the moment that we become political; that is when we are first able to unite around something larger than the self, deeper than aesthetic enjoyment, more urgent than mere curiosity. In this sense, I would add, the moment we commit to empathetic listening, to hearing one another as fellow human beings, we immediately have the potential for not just community, but equality and justice, through direct action and collective transformation. And I am certain that such moments, such purposeful shared presence—a power stronger than itself—will emerge, here, this weekend, with and among each other.

    So I thank you, once again, for assembling, and for listening.

    VIJAY IYER

    Click here to read the 2017 Ojai Music Festival Program Notes

  • Sharing Ojai: Insider Tips for Festival Goers

    Sharing Ojai: Insider Tips for Festival Goers

    Freelance writer/fine art and antiques broker Leslie A. Westbrook covers Ojai and Ventura County for Ventana magazine and the Ventura County Reporter among other outlets.

    She had been attending the Ojai Music Festival off and on for more than three decades. Her father –  “under the radar” jazz pianist and composer Forrest Westbrook – joined her at the Festival during the later part of his life and became a fan as well. Leslie really wishes he was still alive to partake in this year’s jazzy fest— but he will be with her in spirit. We asked Leslie for some of her favorite spots and things to do in Ojai and she has a nice long list to share:

    Ojai’s downtown Arcade. Photo courtesy of Michael McFadden/Ojai Visitors Bureau

    Music fans cannot live on music alone (well, almost) so what to do in-between concerts? Explore the valley and all it has to offer. Here are a few more reasons (as if you needed one!) to hit Ojai for the Festival this year.

    EAT
    For quick, casual but tasty Mexican, two hole-in-the wall spots popular with locals:

    The pineapple tamales at La Fuente (tucked into the corner of a strip mall) are sweetly addictive, but there are six other flavors ranging from cheese and chili to corn or pork.  Street tacos on homemade rosemary tortillas at Ojai Tortilla House satisfy – be prepared to wait in line and eat on the street (no tables here), or better yet, head to Libbey Park and grab a picnic table where you can also enjoy the Rio Negro II sound installation.

    Azu of Ojai

    Quick nibble before the tennis court pre-concert chat and evening concert? Pop into Azu for tapas and beers. Looking for a great gluten-free meal – Food Harmonics is the new “kid on the block” right on the Arcade.

    For a more leisurely meal, Suzanne’s is a long time favorite for concert goers (seafood entrees at dinner; salads at lunch); Nocciola is a wonderful alternative in town. Leave plenty of time so you don’t miss a concert to indulge in the tasting menus in this charmingly restored historic Craftsman bungalow – Bravo to owner/chef Pietro Biondi for bringing a tasty bit of Italy to Shangri-La.

    DRINK
    Wake UP! and smell the freshly roasted coffee sourced and roasted by the owners at Beacon Coffee Co. (new since last year’s fest) and a tasty savory or grab a cuppa java at longtime fave Ojai Roasting Co. The gigantic berry muffins at Ojai Café Emporium will hold you through morning concerts.

    Midday refreshment? Grab a smoothie or healthy salads from the deli case at Rainbow Bridge – and people watch from a street side table.

    The Ojai Vineyard on Montgomery Street

    Pop in for a  pre-concert wine tasting at The Ojai Vineyard tasting room – we’ve never had a bad wine from winemaker Adam Tolmach. At the Festival’s new “Pub in the Park” on Friday and Saturday night, Attitude Adjustment will have OV wines available for purchase.

    PRAY/MEDITATE / CHILLAX

    Ojai is famous as a spiritualist retreat and community, Krishnamurti lived here – visit the philosopher’s library and former home in Ojai’s East End. Or head to Meditation Mount for stunning views of the valley.

     

    Meditation Mount spectacular view

    LOVE ART
    From contemporary fine art to handmade pottery, Ojai prides itself on the talent in the valley. If you like what you see, plan to revisit Ojai during the annual Studio Artists Tour in the fall and visit studios and meet the artists.

    The Porch Gallery shows cutting edge contemporary art, During the Festival check out its current exhibit – the Ojai Invitational 2017: “California Space & Light”, a collaboration with EMS Arts featuring selected works by Kelly Berg, Brad Howe, Andy Moses and Jennifer Wolf.

     Ojai has an earthly side, too. Contemporary ceramics can be purchased at PSpace Pottery or take a drive up and over the grade to visit Ojai icon Beatrice Wood’s (1893-1998) pottery studio, who credited her longevity thusly: “I owe it all to art books, chocolates, and young men.”). We’d add good music.

    Rains Department Store in downtown Ojai

    SHOP 
    De Kor & Co, is a great emporium for a mix of home wares, clothing and cool gifts. Rains is an old-fashioned department store and Ojai institution. Walk on through – for men and women’s clothing and a great kitchen department! Partake in olive oil tasting at former high fashion mode Carolina Gramm’s gorgeous shop – she flavors EVOO and vinegars as well with subtle flavors. Walnut balsamic vinegar is a fav, but find your own amidst the vast array.

    STROLL 
    Don’t miss the Sunday Farmer’s Market – Mingle with locals and check out Ventura County’s rich cornucopia of flavorful, fresh organic produce. Nibble on popsicles in unique flavors (chili anyone?), chocolates made by a mother/daughter team, baked goods and other treats and you might even find Golden State papayas – who knew these tropical treats are raised in our region?

    NATURE 
    Need to stretch? Hike Shelf Road – or take a drive 3 miles to stroll Taft Gardens to admire exotic and rare botanicals from Australia and beyond.

    Last but not least, don’t miss Ojai’s famous Pink Moment – the magic glow at sunset that kisses the Topa Topa mountain range.

    • Leslie A. Westbrook 

  • 2017 Live Stream

  • 2017 Festival Reviews

    2017 Festival Reviews

     

    Ojai Music Festival – “Time, Place, Action” by Vijay Iyer 6/10/2017 Libbey BowlOjai Music Festival – “Yet Unheard” by Courtney Bryan 6/10/2017 Libbey Bowl

    The 2017 Ojai Music Festival with Music Director Vijay Iyer embodied the spirit of the Festival with an openness to discovery and stretching musical boundaries. This year as Vijay expressed the 71st edition was an opportunity to bring various communities together. Relive the 2017 Festival anytime by watching our archived live streaming concerts on our You Tube channel.

    Feedback from our audience, artists, and members of the press is important to us. Read review excerpts, which we will continue to update as press reviews come in, or download the PDF version here.

     

    [Vijay Iyer] made a festival with a history of daring and risk-taking become more vital and daring than ever. – San Diego Union-Tribune

     

    The compelling feature was in what appeared to be Iyer’s own quest to find examples of how to take the next step and make the music your own.

    For that he brought some of the great masters of day, with special and illuminating attention on Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Music. Friday night, Iyer presented the West Coast premiere of George Lewis’ brilliant 2015 opera, “Afterword,” written to commemorate the 50th anniversary of AACM” – Los Angeles Times

    Over the weekend, we heard Iyer in multiple settings. He showed his ever-deepening attributes as a composer, most notably in the impressive world premiere of his engaging Violin Concerto, “Trouble,” for style-flexible virtuoso Jennifer Koh (whose late-night solo concert “Bach And Beyond,” melding Bach, Berio and others, was a bold highlight of the weekend). – DownBeat magazine

     

    Proving once again that for the truly fearless, nothing is impossible, the 2017 Ojai Music Festival effectively erased the boundaries between jazz, classical, traditional Indian music, and more over the course of four sound-packed days in and around Libbey Bowl. – Santa Barbara Independent 

     

    Improvisation and invention from two continents staked out new ground somewhere in between. Was it jazz? Maybe. But as a whole, this year’s gathering in Ojai thrived under its long-held, suitably broad umbrella of “music festival,” and an excellent, engrossing one at that. Ultimately, those are the only labels that matter. – Los Angeles Times

  • 2017 Photos

    2017 Photos

  • Michael Hersch, Composer

    Michael Hersch, Composer

    “one of the most fertile musical minds to emerge in the U.S. over the past generation” – The Financial Times 

     

    “a natural musical genius who continues to surpass himself” – The Washington Post 

     

    “masterly modernist music of implacable seriousness” –The New Yorker

     

    “Hersch’s language never hesitates to leap into the abyss – and in ways that, for some listeners, go straight to parts of the soul that few living composers touch.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer

    MICHAEL HERSCH

    Described by The New York Times as a composer of works “often startling in their complexity, beauty and demonic fury,” Michael Hersch’s music been performed in the U.S. and abroad under conductors including Mariss Jansons, Alan Gilbert, Marin Alsop, Robert Spano, Carlos Kalmar, Yuri Temirkanov, Giancarlo Guerrero, and James DePreist; with the major orchestras of Cleveland, Saint Louis, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, Seattle, and Oregon, among others; and ensembles including the String Soloists of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Ensemble Klang, the Kreutzer Quartet, the Blair Quartet, NUNC, and the Network for New Music Ensemble. In recent years he has worked closely with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, who has commissioned several works from him, including his Violin Concerto. Hersch has also written for such soloists as Thomas Hampson, Midori, Garrick Ohlsson, Shai Wosner, Miranda Cuckson, Béla Fleck, and Boris Pergamenschikow.

    His solo and chamber works have appeared on programs around the globe – from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in the U.S. to Germany’s Schloss Neuhardenberg Festival in Brandenberg and the Philharmonie in Berlin; from the U.K.’s Dartington New Music Festival and British Museum to Italy’s Romaeuropa and Nuova Consonanza Festivals. Performances in the far east include those with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Japan’s Pacific Music Festival.

    Recent and upcoming premieres include his Violin Concerto, with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Avanti Festival in Helsinki, and the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland; the NYC premiere of Zwischen Leben und Tod, at the newly established National Sawdust, new productions in Chicago, Washington, and Salt Lake City of his monodrama, On the Threshold of Winter, described by The Baltimore Sun as a work of “great originality, daring, and disturbing power.” The monodrama premiered in 2014 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Of the premiere The New York Times noted: “Death casts a long shadow over the recent work of Mr. Hersch … But in On the Threshold of Winter Mr. Hersch has given himself the space to burrow past anger and incomprehension in search of an art fired by empathy and compassion.” Over the past several years, Hersch has also written new works for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Alban Berg Ensemble Wien, the Library of Congress, and Holland’s Ensemble Klang. Other notable recent events include European performances by the Kreutzer Quartet of Images From a Closed Ward in the U.K. and Sweden, and the premiere of Of Sorrow Born: Seven Elegies, a work for solo violin commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, premiered at the orchestra’s Biennial.

    Born in Washington D.C. in 1971, Michael Hersch came to international attention at age twenty-five, when he was awarded First Prize in the Concordia American Composers Awards. The award resulted in a performance of his Elegy, conducted by Marin Alsop in New York’s Alice Tul-ly Hall. Later that year he became one of the youngest recipients ever of a Guggenheim Fellow-ship in Composition. Mr. Hersch has also been the recipient of the Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize, the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, and many other honors.

    Also a gifted pianist, Mr. Hersch has appeared around the world including appearances at the Van Cliburn Foundation’s Modern at the Modern Series, the Romaeuropa Festival, the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., Cleveland’s Reinberger Chamber Hall, the Festival of Contem-porary Music Nuova Consonanza, the Warhol Museum, the Network for New Music Concert Se-ries, the Left Bank Concert Society, Festa Europea della Musica, St. Louis’ Sheldon Concert Hall, and in New York City at Merkin Concert Hall, the 92nd St. Y Tisch Center for the Performing Arts, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, among others. Mr. Hersch currently serves as chair of the composition faculty at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.

  • Mahler Chamber Orchestra

    Mahler Chamber Orchestra


    The Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) was founded in 1997 based on the shared vision of being a free
    and international ensemble, dedicated to creating and sharing exceptional experiences in classical
    music. With 45 members spanning 20 different countries at its core, the MCO works as a nomadic
    collective of passionate musicians uniting for specific tours in Europe and across the world. The
    orchestra is constantly on the move: it has, to date, performed in 36 countries across five
    continents. It is governed collectively by its management team and orchestra board; decisions are
    made democratically with the participation of all musicians.
    The MCO’s sound is characterized by the chamber music style of ensemble playing among its alert and
    independent musical personalities. Its core repertoire, ranging from the Viennese classical and
    early Romantic periods to contemporary works and world premieres, reflects the MCO’s agility in
    crossing musical boundaries.

    The orchestra received its most significant artistic impulses from its founding mentor, Claudio
    Abbado, and from Conductor Laureate Daniel Harding. Pianist Mitsuko Uchida, violinist Isabelle
    Faust and conductor Teodor Currentzis are current Artistic Partners who inspire and shape the
    orchestra during long-term collaborations. In 2016, conductor Daniele Gatti was appointed Artistic
    Advisor of the MCO. Concertmaster Matthew Truscott leads and directs the orchestra regularly in its
    performances of chamber orchestra repertoire.

    MCO musicians all share a strong desire to continually deepen their engagement with audiences. This
    has inspired a growing number of offstage musical encounters and projects that bring music,
    learning and creativity to communities across the globe. Feel the Music, the MCO’s flagship
    education and outreach project, has opened the world of music to deaf and hard of hearing children
    through interactive workshops in schools and concert halls since 2012. MCO musicians are equally
    committed to sharing their passion and expertise with the next generation of musicians: since 2009,
    they have, through the MCO Academy, worked with young musicians to provide them with a high quality
    orchestral experience and a unique platform for networking and international exchange.

    In recent years, the MCO’s major projects have included the award-winning Beethoven Journey with
    pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, who led the complete Beethoven concerto cycle from the keyboard in
    international residences over four years, and the opera production Written on Skin, which the MCO
    premiered at Festival d’Aix en Provence under the baton of composer George Benjamin, performed at
    Mostly Mozart Festival in New York and toured, as a semi-staged concert production, to major
    European cities. In 2016, the MCO and Mitsuko Uchida embarked on a multiple-season partnership
    centred on Mozart’s piano concertos. Upon the conclusion of a complete cycle of Beethoven
    symphonies, the MCO and Daniele Gatti continue their focus on Robert Schumann’s symphonic work.
    The Mahler Chamber Orchestra looks forward to a diverse array of projects in spring 2018, including
    appearances at major festivals worldwide. Highlights include two tours led by Artistic Advisor
    Daniele Gatti focusing on symphonic repertoire; the launch of a long-term partnership with
    Heidelberger Frühling; the MCO’s first US residency, at Ojai Music Festival, in collaboration with
    its 2018 Music Director Patricia Kopatchinskaja; a semi- staged concert performance of George
    Benjamin’s Written on Skin at Holland Festival; and the MCO’s debut at Audi Sommerkonzerte, where
    it shares the stage with violinist Pekka Kuusisto in an open-air concert.

    The Mahler Chamber Orchestra has been awarded the Special Mention Prize of the German Design Award
    2017 in recognition of its brand identity.

     

  • Grant Manager

    Ojai Music Festival Grants Manager

    Internationally regarded as one of the most influential annual classical music events, the Ojai Music Festival has long served as a creative musical laboratory for artists, composers and audiences alike to explore new and unfamiliar repertoire. The Festival uniquely combines the intimate setting of Ojai with artists performing innovative programs over an extended weekend to create an immersive experience. The Festival is committed to fostering a positive and dynamic culture among the performers, artistic staff, administrative staff, audience, volunteers, and the Ojai community. In addition, the Festival’s BRAVO education & community program actively teaches area youth about music and how it relates to other core curriculum subjects, as well as enriches the lives of the local elderly community. The Festival successfully led a community effort to raise $4 million to rebuild Libbey Bowl, which held its grand opening at the June 2011 Festival. 

    The Festival’s Grants Manager reports to the Director of Development and will work directly with the President and Artistic Director as needed to write, identify and solicit funding to meet the Festival’s $250,000 foundation budget (approximately 15-20 grants annually).

    Overall Scope of Responsibilities:

    • Write and develop grant proposals for foundations and other grant-making organizations, effectively communicating the Festival’s mission, programs, and goals to potential funders
    • Identify new potential sources of funding from foundations, state and federal agencies, and corporate entities
    • Manage and maintain the Festival grants calendar to ensure timely submissions of proposals, letters of inquiry, and all progress and final reports
    • Assist Director of Development to build and maintain relationships with foundation contacts and program officers
    • Ensure prompt acknowledgement of gifts in coordination with the Director of Development
    • Stay up-to-date on the Festival’s program developments and outcomes, present and future artistic plans, and organizational needs
    • Keep long-term organizational goals in mind to work to further develop and expand the Festival’s grant program
    • Be available during the annual music festival and assist as necessary (2nd Thursday-Sunday in June)

    Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities:

    • A BA or equivalent degree (Music, English or Business degree preferred)
    • Proven interest in the arts with music preferred
    • 3+ years of proven recent grant writing experience, background in arts/music, (contemporary music a plus)
    • Ability to write grants for both small and large regional, national, and international foundations and entities
    • Strong general knowledge of Southern California Foundations a great benefit
    • Proven ability to prioritize and manage multiple time-sensitive deadlines
    • Reputation among funders as being a well liked yet persuasive and successful advocate
    • Able to work independently with minimal supervision and able resourcefully utilize necessary staff/resources to source information and find effective solutions
    • Creativity in finding new granting opportunities for the Festival’s unique location and program objectives
    • Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail
    • Exceptional communication and writing skills

    Supervisor: Director of Development

     

    Part-Time position: Approximately 8-10 hours/week with generous time off.  Attendance at four-day festival essential. Ability to make visits to Ojai office a minimum of two times per month, remote working options are available for remaining days. Compensation commensurate with experience.

     

    To Apply: Please submit your resume and a copy of a grant proposal written in the past 18 months to Anna Wagner, awagner@ojaifestival.org.

  • Jay Campbell, cello

    Jay Campbell, cello

    Armed with a diverse spectrum of repertoire and eclectic musical interests, cellist Jay Campbell has been recognized for approaching both old and new works with the same probing curiosity and emotional commitment. His performances have been called “electrifying” by the New York Times; “gentle, poignant, and deeply moving” by the Washington Post; and on WQXR by Krzysztof Penderecki for “the greatest performance yet of Capriccio per Sigfried Palm”. A 2016 recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, Jay made his debut with the New York Philharmonic in 2013 and worked with Alan Gilbert in 2016 as the artistic-director for Ligeti Forward, a series featured on the New York Philharmonic Biennale at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2017, he will be Artist-in-Residence at the Lucerne Festival with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, where he will give the Swiss premiere of Michael Van der Aa’s multimedia cello concerto Up-Close, and the world premiere of a new concerto by Luca Francesconi, conducted by Matthias Pintscher in Lucerne’s KKL Auditorium and the Cologne Philharmonie.

    Dedicated to introducing audiences to the music of our time, Jay has worked closely with some of the most creative musicians of our time including Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, Matthias Pintscher, John Adams, Kaija Saariaho, and countless others from his own generation. His close association with John Zorn resulted in the 2015 release of Hen to Pan (Tzadik) featuring all works written for Campbell, and was listed in the  New York Times year-end Best Recordings of 2015. Forthcoming discs include George Perle’s cello concerto with the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot (Bridge), a disc of Beethoven, Debussy, Stravinsky and Pintscher (Victor Elmaleh Collection), and a collection of works commissioned for Campbell by David Fulmer (Tzadik). Equally enthusiastic as a chamber musician and teacher, Campbell is a member of the JACK Quartet, a piano trio with violinist Stefan Jackiw and pianist Conrad Tao, has served on faculty at Vassar College and has been a guest at the Marlboro, Chamber Music Northwest, Moab, Heidelberger-Fruhling, DITTO, and Lincoln Center festivals.

    Learn more here

  • “It’s like a dream – to be able to play and hear my most beloved musical pieces of our time over the course of only a few days, and to share it with the audience members of the most vibrant and progressive festival on the American continent – Ojai. These pieces changed my life; I hope ¬ they will find a very special place also in your souls.” – Patricia Kopatchinskaja

     

    “When I first met Patricia Kopatchinskaja, I knew she was a natural to be Music Director of the Ojai Music Festival. Her unstoppable energy, blazing virtuosity, and relentless curiosity are irresistible, as she demonstrated at the Festival’s Ears Open event in Ojai a year ago. The 2018 Festival will be a showcase of her creativity – as a violinist, as a collaborator, as a programmer, and as a commentator on our time. Patricia sees music in the context of today’s social and political issues so the 2018 Festival is one that will surely offer confrontation, questioning, and healing.” – Thomas W. Morris

    The Ojai Music Festival is proud to present Patricia Kopatchinskaja as Music Director of the 2018 Festival (June 7-10) in her West Coast debut. Joining Patricia, will be the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in its first extended United States residency.

    The Mahler Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1997 based on the shared vision of being a free and international ensemble, dedicated to creating and sharing exceptional experiences in classical music. With 45 members spanning 20 different countries at its core, the MCO works as a nomadic collective of passionate musicians uniting for specific tours in Europe and across the world. Based in Berlin, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra forms the basis of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and has long and fruitful artistic relationships with major artists, including Patricia and Mitsuko Uchida, Ojai’s 2021 Music Director.

    In Ojai, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra will be featured both as an orchestral ensemble, and also as a showcase for the superb solo and chamber music artistry of its members.

    Major 2018 Festival projects include two staged concerts designed by Patricia. The first is Bye Bye Beethoven, which she describes as a commentary on “the irrelevance of the classic concert routine for our present life.” This staged program features a mash-up of music by Charles Ives, John Cage, Joseph Haydn, György Kurtág, Johann Sebastian Bach, and the Beethoven Violin Concerto. Her second semi-staged concert is her own provocative commentary on the inevitable consequences on the planet of global warming. Titled Dies Irae, the program includes music by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Michael Hersch, Byzantine chant, Giacinto Scelsi, and Galina Ustvolskaya’s remarkable Dies Irae for eight double basses, piano, and wooden coffin.

    A new piece by American composer Michael Hersch – described by him as a dramatic cantata for two sopranos and eight instrumentalists – will receive its world premiere at the 2018 Festival, with subsequent performances at Cal Performances’ Ojai at Berkeley and at Great Britain’s venerable Aldeburgh Festival. Hersch, who wrote a violin concerto for Patricia two years ago, is considered one of the most gifted composers of his generation and is a formidable pianist. He currently serves on the composition faculty at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. This new work is a co-commission by the Ojai Music Festival, Cal Performances Berkeley, the Aldeburgh Festival, and PNReview, the prominent British poetry magazine at which Hersch is artist-in-residence.

    Additional programming highlights include Kurtag’s Kafka Fragments; Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat on the occasion of its centennial; major chamber and piano music by Galina Ustvolskaya; as well as Roumanian and Moldavian folk music performed by Patricia and her parents, Viktor and Emilia Kopatchinski on cimbalom and violin. The Festival closes with the Ligeti Violin Concerto performed by Patricia.

    Purchase 2018 Series Passes here

    Additional details will be announced in the fall. 

    Patricia Kopatchinskaja, 2018 Music Director
    Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s versatility shows itself in her diverse repertoire, ranging from Baroque and Classical often played on gut strings, to new commissions and re-interpretations of modern masterworks. Ms. Kopatchinskaja first visited Ojai in April 2016 as a guest on the Festival’s off-season “Open Ears” speaker series.

    A celebrated collaborator, guest artist, and chamber musician, Ms. Kopatchinskaja’s current season highlights include the opening concerts of the new SWR Symphonieorchester with whom she performed Peter Eötvös’ DoReMi Violin Concerto (with the composer himself conducting); an appearance with NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra as part of the inaugural performances of the new Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg; debuts with Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and with Gothenburg Symphonys. Continuing her regular collaboration with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, she appears with them in London and New York under Vladimir Jurowski. György Ligeti’s Violin Concerto is a particular focus of Ms. Kopatchinskaja’s current season; she will perform the work widely including with the Berliner Philharmoniker.

    Ms. Kopatchinskaja serves as Artist in Residence at four major European venues and festivals: at the Berlin Konzerthaus; at the Lucerne Festival (where she will be artiste étoile); at the Wigmore Hall in London; and at the Kissinger Sommer Festival, and is an Artistic Partner with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, performing regularly with the ensemble both in Saint Paul and internationally.

    A prolific recording artist, the last few seasons have seen a number of major releases by
    Ms. Kopatchinskaja. Her release for Naïve Classique featuring concerti by Bartók, Ligeti and Peter Eötvös won Gramophone’s Recording of the Year Award in 2013, an ECHO Klassik Award and a 2014 Grammy nomination. Her recently released “Take Two” on Alpha has garnered critical acclaim worldwide.