Ah Young Hong, soprano
Soprano Ah Young Hong has interpreted a vast array of repertoire, ranging from the music of Bach and Monteverdi to the songs of Poulenc and Shostakovich to the works of some of the 21st century’s most prominent composers.
Best known for her work in Michael Hersch’s monodrama, On the Threshold of Winter, The New York Times praised her as “the opera’s blazing, lone star”. Other operatic performances by Ms. Hong include the title role in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, Morgana in Handel’s Alcina, Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Fortuna and Minerva in Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, and Asteria in Handel’s Tamerlano. She has also appeared with Opera Lafayette in Rebel and Francoeur’s Zélindor, roi des Sylphes at the Rose Theater in Lincoln Center and as La Musique in Charpentier’s Les Arts Florissants at the Kennedy Center. As Poppea, Ms. Hong was deemed “a triumph” whose “tonal gleam filled the hall beautifully” (The Baltimore Sun).
In high demand as a concert and chamber soloist, Ms. Hong has performed with Konzerthaus Berlin’s ensemble in residence, Ensemble unitedberlin, Netherland’s contemporary music ensemble, Ensemble Klang, Daedalus Quartet, The Phoenix Symphony, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, Wiener KammerOrchester, Concert Artists of Baltimore, and Tempesta di Mare, amongst others. In 2017-2018, she will perform with pianist Mark Wait, violinist Carolyn Huebl, and cellist Felix Wang (Nashville); Ensemble Dal Niente (Chicago); Utah Opera (Salt Lake City); and ending the season at the Ojai Festival with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja (Ojai, Berkeley, Aldeburgh-UK).
Ms. Hong recorded the American premiere of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Alles mit Gott und nichts ohn’ ihn, BWV 1127, for National Public Radio’s Performance Today. Other recordings include the world premiere of Rebel and Francoeur’s Zélindor, roi des Sylphes (Naxos), Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater (Peter Lee Music), and Sentirete una Canzonetta with Harmonious Blacksmith. Fall 2017, James Matthew Daniel’s production of Hersch’s On the Threshold of Winter will have its official film release. Ms. Hong will also be a featured soloist in Ensemble Klang’s recording of Michael Hersch’s Black Untitled and cortex and ankle. Winter of 2018, Ms. Hong will debut her first CD through Innova Recordings. The CD will feature Milton Babbitt’s Philomel and Michael Hersch’s a breath upwards.
Ms. Hong currently serves as faculty on the voice department at the Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University.
Patricia Kopatchinskaja
72nd Ojai Music Festival: June 7-10, 2018
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. Her first visit to Ojai was in April 2016 as a guest on the Festival’s off-season “Open Ears” series. Kopatchinskaja’s 2017-18 season commenced with the world premiere of her new project Dies Irae at the Lucerne Festival in the summer, where she was ‘artiste étoile’. Dies Irae is her second staged program following the success of Bye Bye Beethoven with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in 2016 and uses the theme from the Latin Requiem Mass as a starting point for her new concept featuring music from Gregorian Chant and Early Baroque to Giacinto Scelsi and Galina Ustvolskaya.
2018 Festival Line-Up is Announced
“Ojai is special. There is no fight with new music, no fear — just curiosity and hunger for fresh music of today. The Ojai audiences are completely open minded, and it’s a wonderful possibility to do music that I truly enjoy and find powerfully relevant in our present world. Ojai is magic,” Patricia Kopatchinskaja, 2018 Music Director.
“When I first met Patricia Kopatchinskaja, I knew she was a natural to be Music Director of the Festival. She is, quite simply, a force of nature. Her unstoppable energy, blazing virtuosity, and relentless curiosity are irresistible. The 2018 Festival will showcase her wildly diverse artistic talents as a violinist, a collaborator, a director, an advocate, and as a creative force. 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. The 2018 Festival aims to capture Patricia’s infectious energy and virtuosity,” Thomas W. Morris, Artistic Director.
The 72nd Ojai Music Festival, June 7-10, 2018, presents Music Director Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s unbounded musical creativity and perspective in the context of today’s social and political climate.
The 2018 Ojai Music Festival welcomes the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) in its first extended United States residency. Founded in 1997, the Berlin-based MCO defines itself as a free and international ensemble, dedicated to creating and sharing exceptional experiences in classical music. With members spanning 20 different countries, the MCO works as a nomadic collective of passionate musicians uniting for specific projects in Europe and across the world. The MCO forms the basis of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and maintains long and fruitful artistic relationships with major artists, including Ms. Kopatchinskaja and Mitsuko Uchida, Ojai’s 2021 Music Director. In Ojai, MCO will display its versatility and virtuosity as an orchestral ensemble, in smaller chamber iterations, and also in superb solo performances from individual members.
The JACK Quartet also makes its Ojai debut at the 2018 Festival. Deemed “superheroes of the new music world” (Boston Globe), JACK is dedicated to the performance, commissioning, and spread of new string quartet music. Comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell, the group collaborates with composers of our day, including John Luther Adams, Chaya Czernowin, Simon Steen-Andersen, Caroline Shaw, Helmut Lachenmann, Steve Reich, Matthias Pintscher, and John Zorn. Upcoming and recent premieres include works by Derek Bermel, Cenk Ergün, Roger Reynolds, Toby Twining, and Georg Friedrich Haas. At the 2018 Festival, JACK will perform works by Georg Frederick Haas, Horatio Radulescu, Morton Feldman, George Crumb and Jorge Sanchez-Chiong.
Major projects will include two semi-staged concerts conceived and directed by Ms. Kopatchinskaja. The first, which opens the Festival on Thursday night, is Bye Bye Beethoven. Kopatchinskaja describes the concert as a commentary on “the irrelevance of the classic concert routine for our present life.” This program features a mash-up of music by Charles Ives, John Cage, Joseph Haydn, György Kurtág, Johann Sebastian Bach, and the Beethoven Violin Concerto. This marks the US premiere of Bye Bye Beethoven, which was premiered at the Hamburg International Music Festival and subsequently staged in Berlin. This production marked the fourth collaboration between Ms. Kopatchinskaja and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Bye Bye Beethoven involves musicians in both conventional and unconventional roles, encounters with different musical genres – including a collaboration with sound designer Jorge Sanchez-Chiong – and discourse among sound, space and imagery.
The second semi-staged concert conceived and directed by Ms. Kopatchinskaja is her own provocative commentary on the consequences of global warming. Titled Dies Irae, the program is an aesthetic reflection of a time rife with global warming, wars over resources, and refugee crises. Musical selections include Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, George Crumb, Michael Hersch, Byzantine chant, Giacinto Scelsi, and Galina Ustvolskaya’s remarkable Dies Irae for eight double basses, piano, and wooden box. The evening performance on Saturday, June 9, 2018 marks its American premiere.
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 Ojai Music Festival, with subsequent performances at Cal Performances’ Ojai at Berkeley and at Great Britain’s venerable Aldeburgh Festival. The Friday, June 8, 2018 premiere follows works by Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, Jorge Sanchez-Chiong, and piano music by Bull, Byrd, Purcell as well as improvisations. 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.
Featured on Friday afternoon (June 8) will be the music of Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya, described by Alex Ross as “one of the century’s grand originals.” Kopatchinskaja has long been a passionate advocate of Ustvolskaya’s music and will perform with pianist Markus Hinterhäuser her Duet and Sonata. Hinterhäuser, who is also the Intendant of the Salzburg Festival, will perform all six of her piano sonatas. Ustvolskaya’s powerful Dies irae will be featured in the Saturday evening concert of the same title.
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.
Free Community Concerts
The 2018 Festival continues to build on its commitment to reach broader audiences with several opportunities for all to experience Ojai offerings. On Thursday June 7, following the three-part Ojai Talks dialogues, the Festival commences the first in a series of six free pop-up concerts in the Gazebo of Libbey Park, featuring performances of most of Luciano Berio’s Sequenzas for solo instruments by members of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Jorge Sanchez-Chiong, electronics, will also perform Luigi Nono’s La lontanaza nostalgica utopia future in a free concert Thursday evening in Libbey Park, preceding the Festival’s first main Libbey Bowl concert of Ms. Kopatchinskaja’s semi-staged concert Bye Bye Beethoven. Additionally, Ms. Kopatchinskaja has programmed two free concerts just for children. Children of all ages will convene in the Ojai Art Center listen to works by Berio, Biber, Cage, Holliger, Arthur Honegger, and Ferdinand the Bull by Alan Ridout for solo violin and speaker. These concerts for children are presented in association with the Festival’s BRAVO education program for schools and community.
Ojai Talks
The 2018 Festival begins with Ojai Talks hosted by Ara Guzelimian, former Festival Artistic Director and current Dean and Provost of The Julliard School. On Thursday, June 7, a three-part series of discussions will begin with an exploration of Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s musical preferences and inspirations. The Ojai Music Festival’s march toward its 75th anniversary frames the second Ojai Talks, with reflections on its storied legacy, contextualization of its place on the world stage, and hints of what evolutions may impact the Festival in the future. The third part of the discussion series will speak to the reinvention of musical groups, with panelists from the JACK Quartet and from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
Additional on-site and on-line dialogue during the 2018 Festival includes Concert Insights, the preconcert talks at the LIbbey Bowl Tennis Courts with Festival artists hosted by resident musicologist Christoper Hailey. Preconcert interviews are broadcast through the Festival’s free live streaming program, hosted by content-expert individuals from across the nation.
Additional details for Ms. Kopatchinskaja’s 2018 Festival will be announced in the spring.
New Partnership with the Aldeburgh Festival
Following the 2018 Festival in Ojai with Music Director Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the following week’s Ojai at Berkeley presented in collaboration with Cal Performances, a new partnership with Aldeburgh will take place at the end of the Aldeburgh Festival (June 21 – 24) based at the acclaimed Maltings Concert Hall and in the town of Snape near Aldeburgh in England. The collaboration with Aldeburgh follows the formation of Ojai at Berkeley as a partnership of co-productions and co-commissions that affords the Ojai Music Festival, the Aldeburgh Festival, and Cal Performances the ability to present more complex and creative artistic projects than could be conceived by each partner separately. The Aldeburgh relationship launches in June 2018, for an initial four-year period.
Ojai at Berkeley
Marking the eighth 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 will take place from June 15-17 in Berkeley, CA, following the Ojai Music Festival. For more information, visit CalPerformances.org.
2018 Festival series passes are available now and may be purchased online at OjaiFestival.org or by calling (805) 646-2053.
Markus Hinterhäuser, Pianist
Markus Hinterhäuser was born in La Spezia (Italy). He studied piano at the Vienna University of Music and at the Mozarteum University Salzburg and attended master classes with Elisabeth Leonskaja and Oleg Maisenberg, among others.
As a pianist, Markus Hinterhäuser has performed as a soloist and chamber musician at the world’s major concert halls and internationally renowned festivals, e.g. Carnegie Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein and Konzerthaus and La Scala Milan. He has appeared at the Salzburg Festival, the Lucerne Festival, Wien Modern, the Festival d’Automne, the Holland Festival, the Berliner Festspiele and elsewhere. In the field of lieder interpretation, his long-standing collaboration with Brigitte Fassbaender is particularly noteworthy. Markus Hinterhäuser and baritone Matthias Goerne perform the lieder cycle Winterreise by Franz Schubert in a worldwide tour. This startling production, conceived in cooperation with the South African artist William Kentridge, has been shown in Vienna, in Moscow (International House of Music), at the Sydney Festival, the San Francisco Opera, at the Cité de la Musique in Paris and many other renowned venues and was brought to South Korea in December 2016.
In recent years Markus Hinterhäuser has focused on the interpretation of contemporary music, in particular of works by Luigi Nono, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Morton Feldman and György Ligeti. Alongside numerous recordings for radio and TV, he has also recorded the complete œuvre for piano by Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton von Webern, as well as compositions by Morton Feldman, Luigi Nono, Giacinto Scelsi, Galina Ustvolskaya and John Cage on CD.
Markus Hinterhäuser has repeatedly participated in music drama productions staged by Christoph Marthaler, Johan Simons and Klaus Michael Grüber, including the Wiener Festwochen productions of Schutz vor der Zukunft (Christoph Marthaler, 2005; revived in 2006; numerous international guest performances) and Janáček’s Diary of One Who Disappeared (Klaus Michael Grüber, 2005).
As a cultural manager, Markus Hinterhäuser has won international acclaim as the co-founder and artistic director (together with Tomas Zierhofer-Kin) of the Zeitfluss series presented from 1993 to 2001 in the context of the Salzburg Festival. At the Wiener Festwochen, Markus Hinterhäuser and Tomas Zierhofer-Kin co-founded and co-directed the Zeit-Zone series, which was part of the Festwochen programme from 2002 to 2004. From 2006 to 2010, Markus Hinterhäuser was responsible for the concert programme of the Salzburg Festival, followed by his tenure as Artistic Director of the Salzburg Festival for the 2011 season. He was Artistic Director of the Wiener Festwochen from 2014 to 2016, bringing the most influential conductors and stage directors to this major festival. Since October 2016 Markus Hinterhäuser has been the Artistic Director of the Salzburg Festival.
Anthony Romaniuk, pianist/harpsichordist
Pianist/harpsichordist Anthony Romaniuk is engaged in a diverse musical environment incorporating solo recitals, concertos, chamber music, baroque basso continuo and improvised performances.
His repertoire spans several centuries; from Byrd, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Brahms – often on historical instruments – to Crumb, Ligeti and 21st-century industrial noise music.
Frequent collaborators include Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Pieter Wispelwey, Vox Luminis and the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
Highlights of the 2017/18 season include solo and chamber performances at the festivals of Lucerne, Adelaide and Ojai (California) in addition to a tour of the U.S.A and Canada with Vox Luminis; appearances with the Orchestra della Toscana; and further development of his collaboration with DJ/composer Jorge Sanchez-Chiong.
Solo recordings planned for summer 2018 include an all-Beethoven programme c.1801 on a replica of an 1801 piano, as well as a project featuring repertoire spanning several centuries linked with improvisations on modern piano. His work on Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s 2015 duet-disc “Take Two” was widely acclaimed, particularly his improvisations on Bach’s chaconne.
During the 2016/17 season he was heard with Kopatchinskaja on the stages of (among others) Wigmore Hall, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern and De Bijloke in Ghent; with Vox Luminis at the Berkeley Early Music and Aldeburgh Festivals, and with the Australian Chamber Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
JACK Quartet
Deemed “superheroes of the new music world” (Boston Globe), the JACK Quartet is “the go-to quartet for contemporary music, tying impeccable musicianship to intellectual ferocity and a take-no-prisoners sense of commitment.” (Washington Post) “They are a musical vehicle of choice to the next great composers who walk among us.” (Toronto Star)
The recipient of Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award, New Music USA’s Trailblazer Award, and the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, JACK has performed to critical acclaim at Carnegie Hall (USA), Lincoln Center (USA), Miller Theatre (USA), Wigmore Hall (United Kingdom), Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ (Netherlands), IRCAM (France), Kölner Philharmonie (Germany), the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), La Biennale di Venezia (Italy), Suntory Hall (Japan), Bali Arts Festival (Indonesia), Festival Internacional Cervatino (Mexico), and Teatro Colón (Argentina).
Comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell, JACK is focused on new work, leading them to collaborate with composers John Luther Adams, Chaya Czernowin, Simon Steen-Andersen, Caroline Shaw, Helmut Lachenmann, Steve Reich, Matthias Pintscher, and John Zorn. Upcoming and recent premieres include works by Derek Bermel, Cenk Ergün, Roger Reynolds, Toby Twining, and Georg Friedrich Haas.
JACK operates as a nonprofit organization dedicated to the performance, commissioning, and spread of new string quartet music. Dedicated to education, the quartet spends two weeks each summer teaching at New Music on the Point, a contemporary chamber music festival in Vermont for young performers and composers. JACK has long-standing relationships with the University of Iowa String Quartet Residency Program, where they teach and collaborate with students each fall, and the Boston University Center for New Music, where they visit each semester. Additionally, the quartet makes regular visits to schools including Columbia University, Harvard University, New York University, Princeton University, Stanford University, and the University of Washington.
Congrats to Tyshawn Sorey: 2017 MacArthur Fellow Recipient
Congratulations to our friend and collaborator Tyshawn Sorey on his appointment as a MacArthur Fellow. Tyshawn’s astonishing creativity has been so evident in Ojai for the last two Festivals – 2016 with Peter Sellars and Julia Bullock, and in 2017 with Vijay Iyer (Sellars and Iyer are themselves MacArthur Fellows). Ojai is an incubator for artists and music, and we can all be proud to see these so honored and recognized with this exciting award. Wonderful and well-deserved news, Tyshawn.” – Thomas W. Morris
The MacArthur Foundation recently announced their Class of 2017 recipients popularly referred to as a “genius grant.” This esteemed list included two-time Festival alum Tyshawn Sorey. A release from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation cited Sorey for “assimilating and transforming ideas from a broad spectrum of musical idioms and defying distinctions between genres, composition, and improvisation in a singular expression of contemporary music.”
The Foundation website summarizes Tyshawn’s work:
A virtuosic percussionist and drum set player who is fluent in piano and trombone, Sorey is an ever-curious explorer of the nature of sound and rhythm, ensemble behavior, and the physicality of live performance. He erodes distinctions among musical genres as well as the line between composition and improvisation and incorporates sophisticated rhythmic and harmonic phrasing, highly prescribed improvisational sound worlds, and real-time experimentation with sound, among many other structural elements. At the same time, he possesses a refined sense of restraint and balance that allows him to maintain his own unique voice while bringing a vast array of musical settings to life. He explores various World and Eastern musical and philosophical concepts on his albums Koan (2009) and Alloy (2014), employing musical languages that range from slowly developing tonally and pantonally based music to free atonal pieces that contain irregular rhythms, lyrical phrasing, and distinctive pacing. Inner Spectrum of Variables (2015) features an extended composition in six movements that merges the harmonic and melodic vocabularies of Western classical, American, and Ethiopian creative expressions, free improvisation, and twentieth-century avant-garde musical traditions. In his song cycle Perle Noire: Meditations for Josephine (2016), Sorey reimagines the legendary Josephine Baker’s works; his original recreations of songs sung by Baker reflect both the context of her contributions to the civil rights movement and contemporary incidences of racial injustice. Sorey challenges expectations of jazz piano trio performance on Verisimilitude (2017), a set of five abstract, enigmatic, and austere pieces in which the delineation between spontaneous and formal composition is even more obscured.
In addition to his own work as a composer, conductor, and ensemble leader, Sorey’s prowess as a percussionist and drum set player is well known, and he continues to be in high demand as a sideman for popular creative artists. With his genre-free approach to making music and continuous experimentation, Sorey is rapidly emerging as a singular talent in contemporary musical composition and performance.
The Ojai Music Festival congratulates Tyshawn for joining the ranks of these creative and forward-thinking individuals. Read 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.
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.
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, [email protected].
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.
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.
2017 Festival Reviews
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
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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
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
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 [email protected]
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.
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
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.