Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet
A trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser, Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith has been active in creative contemporary music for over forty years. His systemic music language Ankhrasmation is significant in his development as an artist and educator.
Born in Leland, Mississippi, Smith’s early musical life began in the high school concert and marching bands. At the age of thirteen, he became involved with the Delta Blues and Improvisation music traditions. He received his formal musical education with his stepfather Alex Wallace, the U.S. Military band program (1963), Sherwood School of Music (1967-69), and Wesleyan University (1975-76). Mr. Smith has studied a variety of music cultures: African, Japanese, Indonesian, European and American.
He has taught at the University of New Haven (1975-’76), the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, NY (1975-’78), and Bard College (1987-’93). He is currently a faculty member at The Herb Alpert School of Music at California Institute of the Arts. He is the director of the African-American Improvisational Music program, and is a member of ASCAP, Chamber Music America, and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.
Watch Q2 Presents Peter Sellars, 2016 Music Director
2016 Music Director Peter Sellars joined host Helga Davis in The Greene Space at WQXR on Friday, May 13 for an evening of conversation and performances by select musicians from the 2016 Ojai Music Festival. Performers included New Zealand-born singer-songerwriter Leila Adu, who has composed for So Percussion and Gamelan Padhang; International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) guitarist Dan Lippel; and the rising soprano and recent Juilliard graduate Julia Bullock.
Program:
Leila Adu, singer and pianist
Leila Adu: Selected Songs
Dan Lippel, guitarist (International Contemporary Ensemble)
Steve Reich: Electric Counterpoint
Julia Bullock, soprano
Poetry by Claudia Rankine
Video excerpt from Henry Purcell: The Indian Queen
Ojai Music Festival Named NY Times Essential Summer Festival
The New York Times has just named the “50 Essential Summer Music Festivals” of 2016, and we are thrilled to have made the list! Here’s what they had to say:
“Peter Sellars, who directs the festival this summer, was inspired by the spiritual traditions of the Ojai Valley when creating this rich 70th anniversary lineup, which is also a tribute to female artists. The superb young soprano Julia Bullock sings the title role in a new chamber version of Kaija Saariaho‘s La Passion de Simone an oratorio about the life of the French feminist philosopher Simone Weil. Ms. Bullock also offers a homage to Josephine Baker with the International Contemporary Ensemble. Other highlights include the South Indian vocalist Aruna Sairam and the Cairo-based singer Dina El Wedidi and her band. The imaginative a cappella vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth offers Caroline Shaw’s remarkable Partita for Eight Voices, alongside a new work by Ms. Shaw. (A week later, La Passion de Simone, the Josephine Baker portrait and the concert by Ms. El Wedidi will be repeated during Ojai at Berkeley.)”
Aruna Sairam Carnatic Singer Comes to Ojai
India’s legendary classical vocalist Padma Shri Aruna Sairam, makes her Ojai Music Festival debut on June 11, 2016, at 8pm, during the milestone 70th edition of the world-renowned music festival in Ojai, California.
Regarded as the Music Ambassador of India for successfully taking Indian music to the global arena, Aruna Sairam will present a “pure south Indian classical” vocal concert. Joining her will be M Rajeev, violin; Sai Giridhar, mridanjam; Ravi Balasubramaniam, ghatam; and Aamani Mynampati, tempura.
“We are thrilled to welcome to Ojai one of the most revered, beloved, surprising, and progressive stars of South Indian music. Aruna Sairam traces her artistic and spiritual lineages from some of the great gurus of the female vocal tradition, both within her own family and across multiple strands of Indian music. This is a woman who lives and moves in many worlds and holds them all magically on the breath. South Indian music is itself a spiritual quest, a philosophical journey, and an evolving state of ecstasy, rapture, and atonement. Aruna Sairam is one of the masters whose long, sinuous vocal line delineates a past that rises spontaneously in her breath as the future,” said 2016 Music Director Peter Sellars.
Purchase single tickets to Sat June 11 concert with Aruna SairamAruna Sairam was born in Mumbai into a family with a deep love of music. Her mother, the singer Smt. Rajalakshmi Sethuraman, was her first teacher in the art of Carnatic music of South India. Her father, a music connoisseur, received the greatest musicians and dancers from northern and southern India in their home. It was in this propitious atmosphere, which was fundamental to the development of her art, that Aruna met Sangita Kalanidhi Smt. T. Brinda, who trained Aruna in the style of her own mentor, the great Veena Dhanammal, one of the most outstanding figures in Carnatic music.
The many national and international honors that have come her way include one of India’s coveted Civilian Honors the Padma Shri, and the prestigious US Congress Proclamation of Excellence, wherein the U.S. national flag was flown atop the Capitol building and handed over to Aruna Sairam with a special Congressional proclamation recognizing her musical contribution. She was appointed by the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu as advisor to the Department of Culture, Tamil Nadu, on Musical Education. She is currently Vice Chairperson of India’s National Center for the Performing Arts, The Sangeet Natak Akademi. She has also performed across the length and breadth of the country, bringing the richness of South Indian classical music to people from all walks of life.
CARNATIC MUSIC OF SOUTH INDIA
The musical map of the Indian subcontinent could be viewed as a vast single cultural area with a rich and fascinating range of musical dialects. Among a huge number of regional traditions, several have attained high artistic status, through strong patronage and through the concentration of gifted musicians in particular places. Among these traditions, larger ‘canonical’ groupings have come to be recognized over the centuries, in which different local practices have taken their places within overarching musical cultures.
The two most commonly acknowledged ‘classical’ cultures are the Hindustani music of the North and the Carnatic (or Karnatak) of the South. ‘Classical’ in the Indian context means, among other things, a music that at the highest level is practiced by rigorously trained specialists, is associated with a long and respected tradition of musical theory and is supported by powerful patronage – whether this be historically that of the temple or kingly court or, as more recently in India, a public following in concerts, broadcasts and a recording industry. Though there are musicians who are trained in both Hindustani and Carnatic music – and there have been experiments in melding the two – true musical ‘biculturalism’ is rare and an upbringing in one tradition does not automatically entail an understanding of the other. But underlying the music there are some fundamental concepts of melody, rhythm and composition common to both.
Carnatic music is the dominant classical tradition in the southern states – those parts of India where the major Dravidian languages are spoken: Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil. With the help of a few guiding principles, a first encounter with this fascinating world of South Indian sound and meaning can prove highly rewarding.
Carnatic music, as we now understand it, can be traced as far back as the 17th century, with some surviving from earlier times. The Hindu religious poet Purandara Dasa (died 1564) composed his Kannada-language poems to be sung and he is popularly regarded as the ‘father’ or ‘grandfather’ of Carnatic music. Though we cannot know much about the style in which his poems were first performed, they are still studied and sung in more recent musical settings. There was a rich musical culture in the 18th century at the Maratha court of Tanjore (Thanjavur, in present-day Tamil Nadu). Here were born, all around the same time in the town of Thiruvarur, the three towering figures commonly referred to as the Carnatic ‘Trinity’. Thyagaraja (1767-1847) , Shyama Shastri (1762-1827) and Muttusvami Dikshitar (1775-1835).The works of these composers have formed the major part of the concert repertoire and it would not be uncommon in even a full-length public performance to hear renderings of works of these ‘composers’ alone.( The similarity, the time period, the proximity of locations and the impact on the legacy are all very close to the Western Music Trinity, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven ) . All three are inseparably associated with the South Indian Music and most Carnatic concert music is strongly derived from their works.. The association of the temple is as strong as that of the concert hall.
The Thanjavur musicians became famous and exerted wide influence. Through the traditional Indian system of ‘teacher-pupil succession’ (guru-shishya parampara), repertoires of songs and associated musical lore were kept alive and flourished through the 19th century and beyond. Thanjavur musicians were employed in many other kingly courts, most notably those of Travancore in present-day Kerala and Mysore in Karnataka. In Travancore the young ruler Raja Swati Tirunal (1813-46) was himself a gifted composer and musical connoisseur, and many hundreds of song compositions still sung today are attributed to him. At his court instrumental music also flourished, especially in the hands of a group of players known as the Thanjavur Quartet. At Mysore under the ruling Wadiyar dynasty there grew up an especially distinguished tradition of veena playing. More recently it was particularly in Madras (now Chennai) that public patronage of Carnatic music dominated. The Music Academy founded in that city in 1928 became chief among numerous institutions teaching and promoting the practice and theory of classical music and dance.
WHAT IS CARNATIC VOCAL MUSIC
The repertoire heard in Carnatic concerts is overwhelmingly based on songs – all musicians are brought up to regard the voice as primary and instrumental music as the offspring of the vocal. So it is that instrumentalists can – indeed should – be fundamentally influenced by knowledge of a vocal repertoire and its intricacies, and even of the voice culture that goes with it. A typical program, whether the main soloist is a singer or an instrumentalist, is a mixture of predetermined and improvised material. The same ‘pieces,’ which serve as a basis for extended performance in rigorously structured improvisation, may be sung or played. Instrumentalists – the solo instrument may be a violin or a veena or some other kind of plucked lute will of course omit the words, but many players and teachers insist nevertheless that constant mental reference to the original song, its text and meaning must be made while playing.
A concert will typically start with a song form called a varnam, a structure in three sections preceded by a brief alapana – an improvised introduction to the raga (the underlying melodic and modal structure of the piece). This will be followed by a number of kritis – many being originally composed by members of the Trinity; the melodies of the songs are often also ascribed to these composers and each is in a prescribed metrical cycle (tala). One kriti is likely to be longer and more developed than the others in its execution and elaboration, but each one will be preceded by at least a brief alapana and each will be extended by some apparently open-ended improvisation which reflects the soloist’s inventiveness and a studied body of relevant melodic and rhythmic patterns. A particularly large-scale form is the ragam-tanam-pallavi, in which the opening alapana is long and highly ‘exploratory’.
Like much of Indian music, and especially that of the ‘classical’ traditions, Carnatic melody is based on a system of modal substructures (ragas), each of them defined not only by its name and by ascending and descending scalar patterns, but also by characteristic ‘inflection’ of notes – shakes, oscillations, tremolos and so on – and it is perhaps this style of melodic embellishment above all else that gives South Indian music its particular beauty and its characteristic flavor. There is no fixed pitch; the unshifting tonic of the raga (played throughout the performance by one or more drone instruments – called the tanpura) may be set to suit the natural pitch of the main performing voice or instrument.
By Western standards, audiences of Indian music tend to show their appreciation of performances rather uninhibitedly, and in Carnatic concerts ‘participation’ is expressed most visibly by the marking and punctuating, through hand and finger gestures, of the metrical schemes (talas) to which the songs are set – rhythms and patterns which are played out on the drums and other accompanying percussion instruments. You may like to try it out – just take the lead of a South Indian sitting nearby!
—–Introduction on Carnatic and Vocal Music © Jonathan Katz
Jonathan Katz teaches at St Anne’s and Brasenose Colleges, Oxford. He is a linguist and musician with interests in European as well as South Asian language, literature and musicology.
5 Questions To Peter Sellars – Interview by Larry & Arlene Dunn
Longtime contributors to new music blog I Care If You Listen Larry and Arlene Dunn recently published an interview with 2016 Music Director Peter Sellars for the site’s popular “Five Questions To…” interview series. Read the interview below, reposted with permission, and explore more articles and news on the I Care website.
Opera and theater director Peter Sellars is the Music Director for the 70th annual Ojai Music Festival, coming up in June in Ojai, California. He is in great demand as a creative collaborator by composers, performers, and other artists around the globe, as exemplified by this year’s Ojai program which features works by composers Kaija Saariaho, Claude Vivier, and Tyshawn Sorey, and performances by International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), soprano Julia Bullock, and international sensations Aruna Sairam and Dina El Wedidi.
What has been your experience of the Ojai Festival, leading up to your stint as Music Director?
I’ve been coming to Ojai as an audience member for over 30 years, since I first moved to California. The first time I worked here was with Pierre Boulez when we staged Stravinsky’s Soldier Story a week after the Los Angeles uprising. More recently I worked with Dawn Upshaw, when she was Music Director in 2011, to stage George Crumb’s The Winds of Destiny. I am thrilled to now be able to assemble a multi-layered program that rests on the immense history of this place — the spiritual searchings of Krishnamurti sitting under the trees, this sacred site of the Chumash people. Contemporary music is always at the forefront here and represents the connection between music and political and social change. This is not new. Classical composers, in their own times, have a long history of foregrounding the textual materials of the movements of their day, taking their music well beyond the realm of entertainment. Mozart in the Marriage of Figaro, Schoenberg in Moses and Aaron, they directly addressed the structures of inequality through their works. This year at Ojai, most of the composers are women. Now, on the one hand, I’d rather not have to mention that. But there’s something wildly exciting about hearing from the other half of the planet. And there are so many more than just a few to choose from! It’s an amazing and deep body of work, and it would be nice if more institutions recognized that.
Your Ojai program will highlight the works of Kaija Saariaho; what is it like developing projects with her?
Kaija is just an incredible joy to work with; she has such absolute commitment. We discuss new work deeply and intensely, starting very far ahead. Eventually she goes in a room, closes the door and enters a depth of concentration that is extraordinary. She begins with a chart of harmonic colors and everything flows from there. When she has something ready, her work ethic is exemplary. She is in every rehearsal and absolutely engaged with the performers as we hone the final product.
You’ve programmed a chamber version of Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone; how will it differ from the original?
La Passion was originally written ten years ago for Dawn Upshaw, with large symphony orchestra and chorus. The story delves into the inner life of Simone Weil, the 20th century French philosopher, Christian mystic, and political activist. In this new version, we have the soloist, a chamber orchestra of 19 musicians from ICE, still reasonably large, and a vocal quartet of singers from Roomful of Teeth. In this scale, the piece becomes much more intimate. Our soloist will be the stunning young soprano Julia Bullock, one of Ms. Upshaw’s proteges. Ms. Bullock, a young woman of color, brings the Black Lives Matter movement into the room and makes this piece relevant to today’s world. This upends the abstract character of Simone Weil’s philosophy and gives the work new dimensionality. Then as now, we face the danger of civilization in collapse, confronting evil of all kinds. Kaija’s pathbreaking musical work endures and astonishes us with newfound understanding of our world, its challenges, its possibilities.
You’ll also present the world premiere of Josephine Baker: A Portrait; what more can you tell us?
Ah, yes. Julia Bullock will also perform the lead role in Josephine Baker: A Portrait, a new oratorio of sorts by Tyshawn Sorey, percussionist, band leader, and composer beyond categorization. Josephine Baker was an African American expatriate in Paris, a contemporary of Simone Weil. And just like Weil, Baker placed her philosophy in her body, her entire lived self. She was an iconic lightning rod challenging the French establishment on issues of racial and gender equality.
Sorey’s work blurs the boundaries of so-called jazz and classical musics. He looks expectantly to the future, yet is deeply rooted in the present. The spaciousness of his sensibility and many cultural viewpoints intersect with his highly organized musical structures. Although it is important for him to show Josephine Baker as in control of her own destiny, he also takes the audience into her mysterious life behind the stage where she is haunted by deeper principles and the human struggle to survive. This work breaks Josephine Baker free from her commercial patina and probes her inner dimensions.
What other performers on the program are you particularly excited about?
First, let me say I am simply enthralled to be working with ICE. This is our first time collaborating together and it’s totally exhilarating. It seems there is nothing they can’t or won’t do in service to the music. I’m over the moon! They draw you right into their family and make you feel a part of their process. I want to adopt them, or have them adopt me. We also have two paragons of international musics who will inject the soul of their home regions into the festival. Aruna Sairam is the absolute flower of South Indian spiritual music. She is an innovative singer with a strong political voice, and a visionary collaborator with Western musicians. Dina El Wedidi, from Cairo, is the voice of Tahrir Square and the next generation of Egyptian music. Her voice is captivating and irresistible. There is a fierce political thread through her music that opens a space for a future otherwise unable to be born.
Upcoming:
Friday, May 13, 2016: Q2 Ojai Festival Preview with Peter Sellars at the Greene Space in New York City
Monday, May 16, 2016: Ojai Festival Preview with Peter Sellars and Alex Ross at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, CAJune 9-12, 2016: 70th Ojai Music Festival, Ojai, CA
June 16-18, 2016: Ojai at Berkeley, at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, CA
Free Street Party Jam Session in Santa Paula
The Ojai Music Festival and Santa Paula Chamber of Commerce will present a free Street Party Jam Session following the Sunday, June 12 concert at the Libbey Bowl.
“The Festival will expand and flow into a huge street party in the adjacent town of Santa Paula, culminating in the sheer communal pleasure of the joy of improvisation, increasingly wild juxtapositions, spontaneous jam sessions, and very, very good times.” – Peter Sellars, 2016 Music Director
SUN JUNE 12, 2016
Historic Main Street, Santa Paula
6-8:30PM
Featured artists will include:
Leila Adu
Dina El Wedidi
ICE
Aruna Sairam
Tyshawn Sorey
Youth Orchestra LA (YOLA)
Los Jornaleros del Norte
Cambalache
Plus, downtown Santa Paula restaurants will be open for the community and patrons to enjoy during the evening performances. Free parking in downtown Santa Paula.
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The Ojai Music Festival Makes Musicians of All Children
The Ojai Music Festival’s BRAVO program is laying the foundation for all of Ojai’s public school children to become musicians, starting at a very early age. In first and second grades, the students experience songs, games, rhythmic activities and simple sound/symbol matching. This year, BRAVO has expanded its reach to third graders, who are beginning to read musical notes. Weekly lessons are taught by Laura Walter using the principles of ETM (Education Through Music).
Next year, when these students are in fourth grade, they will be given the opportunity to sample a variety of instruments, provided by BRAVO. These early musical opportunities are paying dividends, as students are inspired to play instruments or sing in chorus at the intermediate, junior and senior high school level. Students who do not move into further music training have developed an appreciation of music which will serve them well throughout their lives.
According to Kathy Broesamle, ETM volunteer and grandparent of three public school music students, “it’s no wonder that Nordhoff High School has such a strong music program that encompasses classical, jazz, choral and theatrical elements. We are blessed with highly talented and devoted teachers, as well as students who, thanks to BRAVO have a solid music background.”
BRAVO, made possible by the Ojai Music Festival, is funded by community donations and the proceeds from the Holiday Home Look-in and Holiday Marketplace, which will be on November 12-13, 2016.
Watch Peter Sellars and 2016 Artists with our YouTube Playlist
Watch videos with 2016 Music Director Peter Sellars and other Festival artists who will be in Ojai this June! Use the playlist below to browse and play, or watch more videos from past years on our YouTube channel >>
Updates To The 2016 Festival Schedule Announced
Honoring a long-held spirit of pushing boundaries with artists, music, ideas, and audiences, the Festival celebrates its milestone 70th year by broadening the roster of artists, continuing a focus on concerts for the community, and expanding the Festival’s geographic reach
Ojai welcomes Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and showcases her works throughout the Festival including the US premiere of the chamber version of La Passion de Simone
Ojai presents a commissioned work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw Don’t Let Me Be Lonely with text by Claudia Rankine, the world premiere of Josephine Baker: A Portrait with arrangements and music by multi-instrumentalist/composer Tyshawn Sorey, a new work by Cuban composer/conductor Tania León for Youth Orchestra LA (YOLA) and ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble)
ICE and the Calder Quartet return on the heels of their 2015 Festival appearances, and Ojai welcomes back alumni soprano Julia Bullock and violinist/vocalist Carla Kihlstedt
Ojai debuts include vocalist/composer Leila Adu, Egyptian singer Dina El Wedidi, flutist Camilla Hoitenga, Grammy-winning vocal collective Roomful of Teeth, baritone Davone Tines, Indian Carnatic singer Aruna Sairam, Flex dancer Sam I Am, and Youth Orchestra LA (YOLA)
In its sixth season, Cal Performances’ Ojai at Berkeley is slated for June 16 to 18, 2016 following the Ojai Music Festival
“The Ojai Valley has long been recognized as a rare and beautiful natural site that invites retreat, renewal, and regeneration, from Chumash ceremonial life to Krishnamurti’s legendary talks under the trees. The valley has both a grandeur and a human scale that inspire and allow the deepest human questions to resonate, and create a setting for the most personal search for answers. The magical play of light across the canyon and the heady aroma of orange blossoms bring the senses to life, awaken the mind, and create a profound aura of openness and well-being. Music incites many of the same thoughts and emotions, with similar immensity and intimacy and awe. The 70th Ojai Music Festival will gather this powerful energy and spirit of inquiry and reflection into a weekend of peak experiences and secret revelations.”
– Peter Sellars, 2016 Music Director
OJAI, CA (UPDATE APRIL 6, 2016) —The 70th Ojai Music Festival (June 9-12, 2016) with Music Director Peter Sellars pays tribute to a defining hallmark of the Festival – reimagining each year by affording the appointed music director creative freedom to explore their artistic interests and collaborations. Acclaimed opera and theatre director Peter Sellars’ vision for the upcoming Festival honors its long-held spirit of challenging audiences musically and intellectually in a celebration of music in the context of our world today.
Festival Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris says, “The festival that Peter has devised pushes all the right boundaries of the Ojai Music Festival on its 70th anniversary. This will be a festival building on the heritage of past achievements, but more importantly, laying the groundwork for an even more exciting future.”
Peter Sellars has long been known for infusing his music and opera productions with contemporary ideas and social issues. Believing that most classical music is grounded in spiritual and political contexts, he includes a variety of perspectives in his work. He says, “Art was invented as a way to face really difficult things with a sense that in facing them, you’ve already started the healing process.” As such, The 70th Festival embraces opening up to new ideas, new music, new audiences, and new communities.
Mr. Sellars is one of the most innovative and powerful forces in the arts, both in America and abroad. His partnership with Ojai dates back to 1992 when he directed a daring version of Stravinsky’s Histoire du Soldat with Music Director Pierre Boulez. Returning to Ojai in 2011 with Music Director Dawn Upshaw, he directed the critically acclaimed world premiere of the staged production of George Crumb’s song cycle, The Winds of Destiny.
Works by Kaija Saariaho
Concerts throughout the Festival will feature the work of Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, a frequent collaborator of Peter Sellars. He describes her featured work saying:
“For the first time, composer Kaija Saariaho will come to Ojai. We will feature one of her most potent and visionary works. Her new chamber version of La Passion de Simone, a meditation on the life of the courageous French philosopher Simone Weil, written to a wise and humane text by Amin Maalouf, will receive its American premiere with the extraordinary young soprano Julia Bullock. It is a work of startling integrity and permanent challenge in dark times, with a flame of hope that burns brightly and intensely in the darkness. The fierce commitment and brilliance of that flame will be embodied by ICE and Roomful of Teeth, conducted by Joana Carneiro.
Kaija Saariaho’s Only the Sound Remains, which was previously announced as part of the 2016 Festival, has been cancelled due to the new work’s technical and musical complexities, and the limitations of the outdoor venue in Ojai. Commenting on the cancellation of Only the Sound Remains, Mr. Morris said, “As completed, the new work is far more complicated than anyone had anticipated, and involves very complex and sophisticated spatial sound processing. With great reluctance, Peter Sellars and I have determined that such needs are beyond the inherent limitations of an outdoor venue.”
Ojai is pleased to announce additional performances, including a free late night event, featuring vocalist Leila Adu on Friday, June 10, 10:30pm, at the Libbey Bowl. On Saturday, June 11, a concert at the Zalk Theater at Besant Hill will feature the Calder Quartet and Davone Tines performing works of Christine Southworth, Caroline Shaw, and Leila Adu. Patrons currently holding tickets to the cancelled performance of Only the Sound Remains will be given priority access to tickets for these two events.
The Festival is offering multiple ways for patrons to handle previously purchased tickets of the Only the Sound Remains, including refunds, exchanges, or tax-deductible donations. Patrons can contact the box office at 805 646 2053 for additional details.
Ojai Debuts and New Works
Making their Ojai debuts in June will be the Egyptian singer Dina El Wedidi and Indian Carnatic singer Aruna Sairam. In Peter Sellars’ words:
“From Tahrir Square in Cairo, Dina El Wedidi and her band come to America to present a new song cycle that paints a personal picture of the realities, aspirations, disappointments, and determination of the Egyptian revolution. Dina El Wedidi epitomizes the new Egyptian women of a rising generation, her unmistakable voice alive with courage, allure, and the breath of freedom. Her band includes traditional Egyptian and modern electronic instruments.
We are thrilled to welcome to Ojai one of the most revered, beloved, surprising, and progressive stars of South Indian music. Aruna Sairam traces her artistic and spiritual lineages from some of the great gurus of the female vocal tradition, both within her own family and across multiple strands of Indian music. She also collaborates with folk artists, electronic ensembles, and pioneering jazz musicians such as Vijay Iyer. This is a woman who lives and moves in many worlds and holds them all magically on the breath. South Indian music is itself a spiritual quest, a philosophical journey, and an evolving state of ecstasy, rapture, and atonement. Aruna Sairam is one of the masters whose long, sinuous vocal line delineates a past that rises spontaneously in her breath as the future.”
Newly announced artists who will also make their Ojai debuts include Leila Adu, a New Zealand composer of Ghanaian descent. With a “voice like hot treacle on broken glass”, she has performed her original piano songs and improvisations worldwide. Based in Brooklyn, she is a currently a Princeton doctoral fellow and also teaches music to prisoners at Sing Sing Correctional Facility as a faculty member of Musicambia – Music as Social Change in Incarcerated Communities.
Ojai audiences will also welcome bass-baritone Davone Tines. Mr. Tines is building an international career commanding a broad spectrum of opera and concert performance from early music to adventurous contemporary works. Upcoming engagements include the workshopping and premiere of Crossing: A New American Opera for The American Repertory Theater directed by Diane Paulus, and his European debut with the Munich Philharmonic and the premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s Only the Sound Remains by the Dutch National Opera in March, directed Peter Sellars. Mr. Tines is a 2009 graduate of Harvard University and 2013 Master of Music graduate of The Juilliard School.
In addition to Ms. Adu and Mr. Tines, Ojai is pleased to announce the debut of flutist Camilla Hoitenga.
Ms. Hoitenga is at home on stages worldwide, playing not only the C-flute, but also the alto, bass, and piccolo flutes, in addition to other varieties of her instrument. Her repertoire ranges from pre-Bach to post-Stockhausen. Her recordings, in particular those with Kaija Saariaho, have won awards in France, Great Britain, and North America. She has performed concertos written for her by composers such as Kaija Saariaho, Péter Köszeghy, Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi, and Raminta Serksnyte.
Soprano Julia Bullock will be featured in the world premiere of Josephine Baker: A Portrait, with new music and arrangements for ICE by composer/multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey. Peter says of the work:
“Julia Bullock will be at the center of a unique and poignant evening honoring the brilliance, daring, public courage, and private tragedies of Josephine Baker, the black icon who created a singing, dancing declaration of independence with her black body, and blazed a trail of irresistible challenge and charm in France in the same years that Simone Weil pursued her feminist vigil on behalf of a larger humanity. Our Ojai evening will be a very personal portrait of Josephine as a fearless fighter for civil rights and a visionary who paid dearly for every forward step. Musical arrangements and original music for the evening will be crafted by the brilliant multi-instrumentalist/composer Tyshawn Sorey.”
“This year’s Festival will have its rituals. At mid-day there will be concerts of the kaleidoscopic and more rarely performed chamber works of Kaija Saariaho. The later afternoons will offer music of longing and consolation. Caroline Shaw’s works will be paired with Carla Kihlstedt’s phosphorescent exploration of dream worlds, At Night We Walk in Circles and Are Consumed by Fire, and Du Yun’s peeling away the surface of the world in An Empty Garlic.
Claudia Rankine’s seminal book, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, inspires another Ojai commission, a new vocal work by Caroline Shaw. Intensely personal, under the skin states of emotion, memory, and hope emerge in Caroline Shaw’s body of work as well as in her body – Caroline Shaw’s music is drawn from her voice, from her throat, from her heart, her pulse, and her blood. Her new work will once again be composed for the ensemble Roomful of Teeth, who will also be reprising her Pulitzer Prize winning Partita for 8 Voices for Ojai.”
An addition to this year’s Festival schedule is Pauline Oliveros’ Sonic Meditations, which will lead the Friday and Sunday mornings, realized by ICE and performed at Meditation Mount.
On Sunday afternoon (June 12), the Festival will present an extremely rarified American premiere of Canadian composer Claude Vivier’s Kopernikus, performed by Roomful of Teeth and ICE, and conducted by Eric Dudley. The performance will be joined by renowned Flex dancer Sam I Am who captivated audiences in FLEXN at the Park Avenue Armory a year ago. The New York Times hailed his “breathtaking lyricism, an unearthly mix of lightness and weight that pools in his big, sad eyes.” Peter describes the work as:
“Based on his own libretto, Claude Vivier’s Kopernikus is an uncategorizable, genre-defying opera/ritual. The posthumous discovery and rediscovery of Vivier’s clairvoyant, tragic, and otherworldly music has brought the dawning realization that the world lost a great composer with his appalling and premature death in 1983. A generation later, his music speaks with a fresh and searing clarity that transcends time – it is medieval and it is modern, it is bizarre and it is Balinese, it is carnal and it is Canadian. And it remains just beyond our earthly sphere. Seven instruments and seven vocalists portray Agni the Hindu God of Fire, Lewis Carroll, Merlin, the Queen of the Night, a blind prophet, an old monk, Tristan and Isolde, Mozart, the Master of the High Seas, and Copernicus and Copernicus’ mother. Claude Vivier’s project: “start again at the beginning, really put the world to rights, rediscover sensitivity.” To quote Copernicus’ mother, “the world is getting ready for a huge change, would you like to participate?”
Free Concerts for the Ojai Community
On Sunday morning (June 12), the Festival will present for the first time two free events for families as part of the regular Festival schedule, at the Ojai Art Center and in the Libbey Bowl:
“The final Sunday of the Festival will shift into an exuberant children’s festival for the first half of the day, featuring music written and performed by, with, and for children and anyone who is ready to listen to the world with fresh ears. The doyenne of the toy piano, Phyllis Chen, will compose, perform, and trigger a participatory cascade of toy piano mania and magnificence. Next, YOLA, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s essential and ebullient Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) comes up to Ojai to join forces with ICE in performing a newly commissioned work by the celebrated and sensational Cuban-born composer Tania León, followed by a second world premiere of a new work written by young Los Angeles composer Sharon Hurvitz.”
Free Street Party Concert in Santa Paula
On Sunday evening following the concerts at the Libbey Bowl, the Festival will present a free street party on the main street of neighboring Santa Paula – a half-hour drive east – featuring ICE, Dina El Wedidi, Aruna Sairam, Roomful of Teeth, Leila Adu, and other artists, expanding the geographic boundaries of the Festival.
“The Festival will then expand and flow into a huge street party in the adjacent town of Santa Paula, culminating in the sheer communal pleasure of the joy of improvisation, increasingly wild juxtapositions, spontaneous jam sessions, and very, very good times.”
Ideas: Ojai Talks, Transformation Talks, Concert Insights
Ojai Talks will launch the Festival on Thursday, June 9 with Ojai Talks Director Ara Guzelimian in conversation with Peter Sellars and Kaija Saariaho, at the Ojai Valley Community Church. Preceding the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday concerts on the Libbey Bowl stage will be Transformation Talks: Light into Darkness, Darkness into Light – a series of discussions with prominent guest panelists moderated by Peter Sellars and distinguished musicologist Susan McClary. Concert Insights with Christopher Hailey interviewing featured artists will take place before the afternoon concerts at the Libbey Park Tennis Courts.
Ojai at Berkeley
Marking the sixth year of artistic partnership, Ojai at Berkeley celebrates the dynamic nature of the Ojai Music Festival and of Cal Performances. As two distinct communities with similar values, 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 2016 Ojai Music Festival and will take place from June 18 to 20 in Berkeley, CA. For more information visit CalPerformances.org.
Festival Tickets
Festival single tickets are available for the 2016 Festival and may be purchased online or by calling (805) 646-2053. Tickets range from $40 to $150 for reserved seating and lawn tickets are $15.
Read the full press release >>
Q2 Music and WQXR Present: Ojai Music Festival and Peter Sellars
Q2 Music and WQXR
Present
Ojai Music Festival and Peter Sellars
Hosted by Helga Davis
Music and Conversation with 2016 Ojai Music Festival Director and Performing Artists
Friday, May 13, 2016
7:00pm
The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space
44 Charlton Street (corner of Varick Street)
New York, New York 10013
$30 general admission
Please join us for an evening of live performances from artists featured in the upcoming 2016 Ojai Music Festival and a conversation with the world-renowned music director, Peter Sellars. He will also share insights and anecdotes from a prodigious, colorful and unique career as a driving force in the creation of new music and bringing 20th and 21st century operas to the stage.
Champagne Reception to Follow
Kindly respond to Alex Spinks by Monday, May 2, 2016
646 829 4274 | [email protected]
New Collaboration With The Wallis
The Ojai Music Festival and the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts are excited to announce An Evening With Peter Sellars, 2016 Ojai Festival Music Director with Alex Ross, on Monday, May 16, 2016 at 7:30pm.
The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts joins forces with the Ojai Music Festival for the first time to present a lively Arts & Ideas conversation between groundbreaking opera and theater director Peter Sellars and The New Yorker music critic Alex Ross. The conversation will take place on the stage of the Bram Goldsmith Theater on Monday, May 16 at 7:30pm.
Sellars, Music Director of the 2016 Ojai Music Festival in June, has gained international renown for his transformative interpretations of artistic masterpieces such as John Adams’ Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer, as well as for his distinctive collaborations with an extraordinary range of artists including Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, dance pioneer Reggie Gray and Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison. Ross, a 2008 MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, is the author of The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
“I am delighted that we can welcome Peter and Alex to our stage for this event,” said Paul Crewes, The Wallis’ new Artistic Director who takes the reins full time next month in April 2016. “Our Arts & Ideas series has enjoyed great success this season, and our exciting new affiliation with the Ojai Music Festival will surely deliver another great night captivating discussion between these two brilliant men.”
“We are delighted to be collaborating with The Wallis for this exciting event with Peter Sellars, our 2016 Music Director and a passionate advocate for the intersection of music and community, and Alex Ross, music critic of The New Yorker and acclaimed writer on music of our time,” expressed Thomas W. Morris, Artistic Director of the Ojai Music Festival are now available for $25 – $35. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit TheWallis.org, call 310.746.4000, or stop by in person at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts Ticket Services located at 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90210. Ticket prices subject to change.
Ojai Music Festival Announces Music Directors Through 75th Festival
Vijay Iyer: 71st Festival, June 8 to 11, 2017
Esa-Pekka Salonen: 72nd Festival, June 7 to 10, 2018
Barbara Hannigan: 73rd Festival, June 6 to 9, 2019
Patricia Kopatchinskaja: 74th Festival, June 11 to 14, 2020
Mitsuko Uchida: 75th Festival, June 10 to 13, 2021
“Ojai prides itself on the wide-ranging breadth and depth of its music directors – from conductors, composers, instrumentalists, choreographers, and theater directors to established musical personalities and emerging artists of the future. The fundamental requirements to serve as a music director are to be a serious and curious musical artist of unquestioned excellence and to fully embrace a sense of adventure. He or she must be someone whose musical predilections will surprise, provoke, and delight. Soprano/conductor Barbara Hannigan, violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and pianist Mitsuko Uchida fulfill these requirements – and along with Peter Sellars, Vijay Iyer, and Esa-Pekka Salonen – will bring to the Ojai Music Festival a truly distinctive and distinguished artistic arc through its 75th anniversary in 2021.”
– Thomas W. Morris, Artistic Director
(FEBRUARY 9, 2016) — As the Ojai Music Festival anticipates the upcoming 70th Festival (June 9-12, 2016) with Music Director Peter Sellars, Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris announces the artists who will serve as Music Directors through the Festival’s 75th anniversary in 2021. Following previously announced future music directors Vijay Iyer (June 8-11, 2017) and Esa-Pekka Salonen (June 7-10, 2018), soprano/conductor Barbara Hannigan will be the 2019 music director (June 6-9), violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja in 2020 (June 11-14) and pianist Mitsuko Uchida in 2021 (June 10-13). Since the late 1940’s, the Ojai Music Festival’s tradition has been to welcome a new Music Director each year to ensure vitality and diversity in programming across Festivals.
Soprano/conductor Barbara Hannigan is known worldwide as a soprano of vital expressive force directed by exceptional technique. She is now bringing that same high energy and expertise to her varied activities as a conductor, while continuing to work as a singer with the most prominent conductors and theater directors. Blessed with a voice at once pure and fiery, she has arrived, through challenging and diverse repertory choices, at a point of complete control, intensity, and versatility. Much sought after in contemporary music (she has given more than 80 world premieres – many of which she has commissioned), she is no less brilliant and devoted a performer of Baroque and music from the Classical era. Bringing freshness to older music and authority to new, she is among the very few singers whose every performance is an occasion. She is a frequent guest of the Berliner Philharmoniker, which recently commissioned the song cycle let me tell you by Hans Abrahamsen, who won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award and is being widely performed around the world. In 2014 she had the rare honor of an invitation as Artiste Étoile to the Lucerne Festival, where she conducted, gave master classes, and premiered an orchestral work written for her by Unsuk Chin. György Ligeti and Henri Dutilleux both regarded her as their soprano of choice. Her startling performances of Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre have been acclaimed widely, as has her expressive fullness in Dutilleux’s Correspondances. Her recording of this work has garnered awards from Gramophone, Edison, and Victoires de la Musique. Other awards include “Sängerin des Jahres” (Opernwelt, 2013) and “Personalité Musicale de l’Année” (Syndicat de la Presse Francaise, 2012). She has worked extensively with Pierre Boulez, George Benjamin, Gerald Barry, Salvatore Sciarrino, Pascal Dusapin, and Hans Abrahamsen, among many others.
In 2020, violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja will make her Ojai debut. 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. Winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist of the Year Award in 2014, Kopatchinskaja made her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in the 2014/15 season performing Peter Eötvös’ DoReMi under the baton of the composer as part of Musikfest Berlin. Other highlights that season included her debut with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and performances with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR/Sir Roger Norrington, and the Philharmonia Orchestra/Vladimir Ashkenazy. She was also Artist-in-Residence with the hr-sinfonieorchester during the 2014/15 season. In spring 2015 Kopatchinskaja toured with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and with the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées. Kopatchinskaja was recently named as Artistic Partner of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Chamber music is of immense importance to Kopatchinskaja’s artistic life and her regular chamber partners include Sol Gabetta, Markus Hinterhäuser, and Polina Leschenko, as well as members of her own family. Kopatchinskaja records exclusively for Naïve Classique. Releases this season include “Take Two!” – a disc of unusual duets with different instruments– and a recording of works by Galina Ustvolskaya with Markus Hinterhäuser for ECM.
Pianist/conductor Mitsuko Uchida will return to Ojai in 2021, the Festival’s 75th anniversary. Uchida last performed at the 2004 Festival and was co-music director in 1998. A superlative interpreter of classical, early romantic, and second Viennese School repertoire, Mitsuko Uchida performs with the world’s most respected orchestras and conductors including Cleveland, Chicago, Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Bayerischer Rundfunk, London Symphony, Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, Pierre Boulez, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons, Riccardo Muti, Sir Simon Rattle, and Esa-Pekka Salonen. A regular recitalist in Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, London, New York, and Tokyo, she is also a regular guest at the Salzburg Mozartwoche and Salzburg and Edinburgh International Festivals. Uchida records exclusively for Decca and has won many awards, including several Grammys. A trustee of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust and Director of Marlboro Music Festival, Uchida was awarded the Golden Mozart Medal from the Stiftung Mozarteum in Salzburg and the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association in 2015. She was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2012 and received an Honorary Degree from the University of Cambridge in 2014. Mitsuko Uchida was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2009.
The 2016 Ojai Music Festival (June 9-12)
The Ojai Music Festival marks its 70th year this June with Peter Sellars, one of the most innovative and powerful forces in the arts both in America and abroad, as Music Director. Sellars’ partnership with Ojai dates back to 1992, when he directed a daring version of Stravinsky’s Histoire du soldat with Music Director Pierre Boulez. He returned to Ojai in 2011 to direct the critically acclaimed world premiere of the staged production of George Crumb’s The Winds of Destiny with Music Director Dawn Upshaw.
The milestone 70th Ojai Music Festival (June 9-12, 2016) pays tribute to a defining hallmark of the Festival – reimagining each year by affording the appointed music director creative freedom to explore their artistic interests and collaborations. Sellars’ vision for the upcoming Festival honors its long-held spirit of challenging audiences musically and intellectually.
The Festival welcomes Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and showcases her works including the American premieres of the chamber version of La Passion de Simone and her newest dramatic creation Only the Sound Remains. Highlights include a commissioned work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, and the world premiere of Josephine Baker: A Personal Portrait with arrangements and music by multi-instrumentalist/composer Tyshawn Sorey. For the complete program, visit www.OjaiFestival.org. Following the 70th Festival in Ojai, Cal Performances’ Ojai at Berkeley takes place from June 16 to 18.
Vijay Iyer
The 2017 Festival introduces composer-pianist Vijay Iyer (pronounced “VID-jay EYE-yer”) as Music Director. A Grammy nominee, Iyer was named DownBeat Magazine’s 2015 Artist of the Year and 2014 Pianist of the Year, a 2013 MacArthur Fellow, and a 2012 Doris Duke Performing Artist. He has released twenty recordings under his own name. The latest, on the ECM label, include Mutations, featuring his compositions for piano, string quartet, and electronics; Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi, a film by Prashant Bhargava, with Iyer’s score performed by ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble); and Break Stuff, featuring the Vijay Iyer Trio. His next record is a duo record with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, for release in March 2016 on ECM. Iyer is the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts in the Department of Music at Harvard University, and the director of the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music. His compositions have been commissioned by Arturo O’Farrill, American Composers Orchestra, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Brentano Quartet, Brooklyn Rider, Imani Winds, ICE, Jennifer Koh, and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. He is a Steinway artist.
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen returns to Ojai in 2018 as Music Director. One of today’s foremost artists, Salonen made his Ojai debut as Music Director in 1999 with composer-in-residence Magnus Lindberg in a program dedicated to Finnish music, and later returned in 2001 to serve again as music director. Salonen is currently the Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor for London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, Conductor Laureate for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he served as Music Director for 17 years, and the Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence of the New York Philharmonic. Through his unwavering dedication to new music and technology, he is a revitalizing force, striving to bring the symphony orchestra into the 21st century. His compositions move freely between contemporary idioms, combining intricacy and technical virtuosity with playful rhythmic and melodic innovations. Salonen’s Floof and LA Variations have become modern classics, and his newest compositions are performed around the globe.
Thomas W. Morris, Artistic Director
Thomas W. Morris was appointed Artistic Director of the Ojai Music Festival starting with the 2004 Festival. Morris is recognized as one of the most innovative leaders in the orchestra industry and served as the long-time chief executive of both The Cleveland Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He is currently active nationally and internationally as a consultant, lecturer, teacher, and writer. As Artistic Director, he is responsible for artistic planning and each year appoints a music director with whom he collaborates on shaping the Festival’s programming. During his decade-long tenure, audiences have increased and the scope of the Festival has expanded, most recently to include a collaborative partnership, Ojai at Berkeley, with Cal Performances at UC Berkeley. Morris was a founding director of Spring for Music and served as the project’s artistic director. He served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Curtis Institute of Music and as chair of its Board of Overseers, and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Interlochen Center for the Arts. He is also an accomplished percussionist.
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 music by today’s composers. The four-day festival is a complete 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.
The Ojai Music Festival attracts the world’s greatest musical artists. 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, and Steven Schick. Following the upcoming 70th Festival with Peter Sellars, Ojai will welcome MacArthur Fellow Vijay Iyer in 2017 and Esa-Pekka Salonen in 2018 as its music directors.
Experience the 70th Ojai Music Festival (June 9-12)
Festival series passes allow patrons to have immersive experiences with music, pre-concert talks, discussions, social gatherings, and an opportunity to enjoy the beautiful Ojai Valley. 2016 Ojai Festival passes, from four-day, three-day to weekend, are available through March 1. Single tickets go on sale in the spring. For more information go online at OjaiFestival.org or by calling (805) 646-2053.
Directions to Ojai and Libbey Bowl, as well as information about lodging, concierge services for visitors and other Ojai activities, are also available on the Festival website. Follow Festival updates at OjaiFestival.org, Facebook (Facebook.com/ojaifestival), and Twitter (@ojaifestivals).
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Creating And Connecting With Music
Imagine a world where wonder happens every day. March is “Music in the Schools Month” and the Ojai Music Festival is bringing that to life. The Festival’s BRAVO Education and Community Program brings the joy of music into classrooms throughout the Ojai Valley and two Ventura area schools with the Imagine Concert, the Music Van, Flutes Across the World, Artists-in-Residence programs, and weekly Education Through Music workshops in every Ojai Unified Elementary school. The children are filled with wonder!
When we create music, the brain uses many networks to process phrases, melody, rhythm, and timbre, or tone color. The brain’s auditory areas light up, but so do areas responsible for motor skills, emotions, and creativity. Music employs many sensory systems at once. We are seeing, we are hearing, we are saying, we are doing. Because of this, memory and intelligence improve.
Steven Schick, conductor
Percussionist, conductor, author, and 2015 Festival Music Director Steven Schick was born in Iowa and raised in a farming family. For forty years he has championed contemporary music by commissioning or premiering more than one hundred-fifty new works. He was the founding percussionist of the Bang on a Can All-Stars (1992-2002) and served as Artistic Director of the Centre International de Percussion de Genève (2000-2005). Schick is founder and Artistic Director of the percussion group, red fish blue fish.
Ojai Dining
Known for using fresh and local ingredients, Ojai’s many restaurants offer visitors a unique taste of the central coast. No trip to Ojai is complete without a delicious meal – use our quick restaurant guide to help you plan your culinary adventure!
Agave Maria’s Restaurant and Cantina
10:30 am – 9:00 pm
106 S. Montgomery St. | 805 646 6353
Mexican food with a fresh twist, featuring several organic and healthy options. Restaurant has a large outdoor patio and a wide selection of drinks. Located downtown. Reservations are recommended.
Bonnie Lu’s Country Cafe
7:00 am – 2:30 pm, closed Wednesday
328 E. Ojai Ave | 805 646 0207
Homestyle breakfast and lunch diner. Features a wide range of traditional American entrees – a local favorite for breakfast. Make sure to arrive early to get a table.
Ca’ Marco Italian Restaurant
11:00 am – 3:00 pm & 5:00 pm – 9:00 pm
1002 E. Ojai Avenue | 805 640 1048
Delicious and inventive Italian favorites.
Reservations recommended.
Deer Lodge
Mon – Thurs: 11:30 am – 10:00 pm (2:00 am Fridays)
Sat & Sun: 10:30 am – 10:00 pm (BBQ 12:00 pm – 4:30 pm)
2261 Maricopa Way | 805 646 4256
Legendary Ojai restaurant featuring farm to table dining in a welcoming lodge environment. Reservations recommended.
Farmer and the Cook
11:00 am – 8:00 pm
339 W. El Roblar Ave. | 805 640 9608
Natural grocery with a restaurant featuring locally sourced and organic meals. Their weekly menu always includes tasty vegan and gluten-free options. Check their website for the menu of the week.
Feast Bistro
Tues – Sat: 11:30 am – close (lunch) | 5:30 pm – close (dinner)
Closed Sundays, except for special events
254 E. Ojai Ave. | 805 640 9260
New American bistro-style restaurant with seasonal daily specials and fresh desserts featuring locally grown ingredients. Special seasonal menu items and deals featured on their website. Reservations strongly recommended.
Los Caporales Restaurant
307 E. Ojai Ave. | 805 646 5452
Located right next to Libbey Park, Los Corporales features traditional Mexican food in a comfortable and cozy setting. The bar has several unique specialty drinks. Reservations recommended.
NoSo Vita
205 N. Signal St. | 805 646 1540
7:00am – 5:00pm (Espresso Bar)
7:00am – 3:00pm (Breakfast & Lunch, no kitchen on Tuesdays)
See website for detailed hours
Coffeehouse and bistro featuring fresh-brewed coffee, espresso, cold craft coffee on tap, and a fresh, vibrant locally-sourced menu.
Ojai Beverage Company
Mon: 12:00 pm – 9:00 pm , Tues & Wed: 11:00 am – 10:00 pm, Thurs – Sat: 11:00 am – 11:00 pm, Sun: 11:30 am – 9:00 pm
655 E. Ojai Ave | 805 646 1700
The Ojai Beverage Company serves upscale bar food at its restaurant and is a premier destination for fine wine, craft beer and unique spirits. Has an extensive tasting menu and shop. Take away is available. Reservations are recommended for dining in.
Ojai Cafe Emporium
7:00am – 3:00pm
Dinner: Wed-Thurs, 3:00 – 8:00pm
Longtime favorite Ojai Cafe Emporium serves up soups, sandwiches, quiches – and now dinner – alongside their famous baked goods.
Ojai Coffee Roasting Co.
5:30 am – 6:00 pm
337 E. Ojai Ave. | 805 646 4478
A local institution and favorite, the Roasting Co. serves coffee, tea, and pastries, as well as a variety of sandwiches and salads. Food can be called in ahead to be picked up.
Osteria Monte Grappa
Sun – Thurs: 11:30 am – 8:30 pm, Friday – Sat: 11:30 am – 9:30 pm
Closed Sunday dinner
242 E. Ojai Ave. | 805 640 6767
Authentic Italian cuisine offered at the heart of downtown Ojai. A wide range of pastas, entrees, and pizzas made fresh from local ingredients. Reservations are strongly recommended.
Rainbow Bridge
8:00 am – 9:00 pm
211 E. Matilija St. | 805 646 6623
Rainbow Bridge’s hot deli offers a wide variety of dishes as part of their rotating menu, as well as sandwiches, soups, and smoothies. The grocery has all the ingredients to perfect your picnic.
Suzanne’s Cuisine
Wed – Mon: 11:30 am – 2:30 pm (lunch), 5:30 pm – close (dinner)
502 W. Ojai Ave. | 805 640 1961
Suzanne’s is a favorite destination for locals and visitors alike. New American cuisine is served in a relaxing atmosphere featuring a beautiful outdoor patio. Reservations are strongly recommended.
The Ojai Vineyard
12:00 pm – 5:00 pm (Sun – Thurs), 12:00 pm – 8:00 pm (Fri – Sat)
109 S. Montgomery St. | 805 798 3947
Owned by Adam and Helen Tolmach, the Ojai Vineyard produces artisan wines using local Ojai and Central Coast grapes. Located a block from Libbey Bowl, their cozy tasting room is a great place to unwind between concerts.
The Ranch House
5:00 pm – 10:00pm
102 Besant Rd. | 805 646 2360
Famed for its original award-winning cuisine, the Ranch House’s menu and beautiful garden setting have long made it a destination of choice for Ojai visitors. Reservations are strongly recommended.
Ojai Lodging
The Ojai Valley is home to many wonderful resorts, bed & breakfasts and motels that are happy to welcome you during your Ojai Music Festival experience. We strongly recommend securing lodging for the Festival as early as possible. For assistance, contact the box office or contact our complimentary Festival concierge, Sheila Cohn: 805 869 1154 | [email protected].
OJAI VALLEY INN & SPA | 805 646 1111
BLUE IGUANA INN | 805 646 5277
CASA OJAI | 800 255 8175
EMERALD IGUANA INN | 805 646 5277
OAKRIDGE INN | 805 649 4018
THE OAKS AT OJAI | 805 753 OAKS (6257)
OJAI RANCHO INN | 805 646 1434
SU NIDO INN | 866 646 7080
CROWNE PLAZA (Ventura) | 800 842 0800
For a change in landscape, consider staying in the coastal city of Ventura, approx. 17 miles from Ojai where they have a variety of accommodations to suit your needs and budget. Visit the Ventura Visitor and Convention Bureau >>
Luke Martin, 2016 Steven Rothenberg Internship Fellow
We are thrilled to announce Luke Martin as the 2016 Steven Rothenberg Internship Fellow. Luke is a composer pursuing his M.F.A. at CalArts and was first an intern at the 2015 Festival. The Rothenberg Fellow and Festival Internship Program are made possible by the generous support of Fred and Ila Rothenberg, in memory of their son Steven Rothenberg.
Luke Martin (b. 1992) is an experimental composer, musician, and poet currently living in Valencia, CA. His work focuses on the concepts of liminality, neutrality, and 
fragility and is primarily interested in exploring limits of perception. More specifically, he is interested in the use of silence, listening, text, and sound as equally considered elements in the compositional practice; for instance, the composer’s task is not only to consider the parameters of determined sound making (both text and instrumental), but also the parameters of how we listen, and how we may interact with and frame silence. The composer, then, seeks to create situations of possible events which the audience, performer(s), and composer all experience concurrently. Further, Luke considers the social and political disposition of a performance a very connected aspect of his work: how can one critically think about the hierarchical roles and power relations at work in a given performance, and then potentially subvert or support them. Recently inspired by David Dunn’s notations for listening and Lasse Thoresen’s spectromorphological analysis of electronic music and sound, Luke is in the beginning stages of developing a notation for silence (i.e., incidental sounds, contingency).
Among his many influences, Luke is particularly inspired by the work of Samuel Beckett, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Peter Ablinger, Luigi Nono, the Wandelweiser Collective, and Gertrude Stein. He is currently in his final year of the M.F.A. music composition program at California Institute of the Arts, studying with Michael Pisaro. Originally from Massachusetts, Luke received his B.A. in English and Music from Colby College in Maine, graduating magna cum laude, phi beta kappa, and with honors in music composition/theory. He has received awards ranging from a Kennedy Center Award for Music Composition to the Mollie Seltzer Yett Prize for Music Academics. Aside from composing, Luke performs in a noise/no-input feedback duo ‘sinecure,’ plays tennis, guitar in both jazz and experimental music settings, enjoys canoeing with family and friends in Maine, and always appreciates a good game of cribbage.
Peter Sellars, music director
Opera, theater, and festival director Peter Sellars has gained international renown for his groundbreaking and transformative interpretations of artistic masterpieces and for collaborative projects with an extraordinary range of creative artists. He has staged operas at the Dutch National Opera, English National Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Opéra National de Paris, Salzburg Festival, and San Francisco Opera, among others, and has established a reputation for bringing 20th-century and contemporary operas to the stage, including works by Hindemith, Ligeti, Messiaen, and Stravinsky.
Music Director Peter Sellars Statement on the 2016 Festival
“The Ojai Valley has long been recognized as a rare and beautiful natural site that invites retreat, renewal, and regeneration, from Chumash ceremonial life to Krishnamurti’s legendary talks under the trees. The valley has both a grandeur and a human scale that inspire and allow the deepest human questions to resonate, and create a setting for the most personal search for answers. The magical play of light across the canyon and the heady aroma of orange blossoms bring the senses to life, awaken the mind, and create a profound aura of openness and well-being.
Music incites many of the same thoughts and emotions, with similar immensity and intimacy and awe. The 70th Ojai Music Festival will gather this powerful energy and spirit of inquiry and reflection into a weekend of peak experiences and secret revelations.
For the first time the composer Kaija Saariaho will come to Ojai. We will feature two of her most potent and visionary works. Her new chamber version of The Passion of Simone, a meditation on the life of the courageous French philosopher Simone Weil, written to a wise and humane text by Amin Maalouf, will receive its American premiere with the extraordinary young soprano Julia Bullock. It is a work of startling integrity and permanent challenge in dark times, with a flame of hope that burns brightly and intensely in the darkness. The fierce commitment and brilliance of that flame will be embodied by ICE and Roomful of Teeth, conducted by Joana Carneiro.
Kaija Saariho’s newest operatic creation is a sequence of two Japanese Noh plays in versions by Ezra Pound, entitled Only the Sound Remains. Again Ojai will offer the American premiere. These two plays will be performed in the tradition of Japanese Takigi Noh, outdoors, lightly held in the gentle grasp of a protective arroyo under a radiant early morning sky for Feather Mantle, a play of illumination, transcendence and evanescence, and just before midnight under an intense starlit sky for Always Strong, the harrowing and haunted story of a young warrior’s spirit struggling to return to life on earth.
This year’s festival will have its rituals. Mornings will begin with liberating and exhilarating Sonic Meditations by Pauline Oliveros realized by the glorious and willing musicians of ICE. At mid-day there will be concerts of the kaleidoscopic and more rarely performed chamber works of Kaija Saariaho. The later afternoons will offer music of longing and consolation. Caroline Shaw’s works will be paired with Carla Kihlstedt’s phosphorescent exploration of dream worlds, At Night We Walk in Circles and Are Consumed by Fire, and Du Yun’s peeling away the surface of the world in An Empty Garlic.
Leila Adu, singer and composer
Leila Adu is a New Zealand composer of Ghanaian descent who has composed for the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Brentano String Quartet, So Percussion, Gamelan Padhang Moncar, and Orchestra Wellington. Based in Brooklyn, she is currently a Princeton doctoral fellow and also teaches music to prisoners at Sing Sing Correctional Facility as a faculty member of Musicambia – music for social change.
Jean-Baptiste Barrière
Jean-Baptiste Barrière was born in Paris in 1958. He has studied music, art history, philosophy, and mathematical logic. He made a career at IRCAM/Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, where he started as a researcher in 1981, before becoming a director of musical research, education, and finally production. In 1998, he left IRCAM to concentrate on his own composition and multimedia projects.
Julia Bullock, soprano
Julia Bullock, equally at home with concert repertoire and opera, has been hailed for her versatile talent. This season, she appeared as soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra and Simon Rattle, the New World Symphony with Christian Reif, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Alice Tully Hall, and in recitals at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Kennedy Center, to name a few. In November, she sang the lead role in the Berlin Philharmonic’s Orchestra Academy performance of Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone, directed by Peter Sellars, which she now reprises at the Ojai Festival.