Steve Lehman, saxophone
Described as “a state-of-the-art musical thinker” and a “dazzling saxophonist,” by The New York Times, Steve Lehman (b. New York City, 1978) is a composer, performer, educator, and scholar who works across a broad spectrum of experimental musical idioms. Lehman’s pieces for large orchestra and chamber ensembles have been performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), So Percussion, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, the JACK Quartet, the PRISM Saxophone Quartet, and the Talea Ensemble. His recent recording, Mise en Abîme (Pi, 2014) was called the #1 Jazz Album of the year by NPR Music and The Los Angeles Times. And his previous recording, Travail, Transformation & Flow (Pi, 2009), was chosen as the #1 Jazz Album of the year by The New York Times.
Aruna Sairam, vocalist
Padma Shri Aruna Sairam, a renowned music ambassador of India, is one of the great classical music voices of India. Her style is rooted in tradition, yet continues to evolve. She belongs to the Veenai Dhanammal school of Carnatic music, known for its strict adherence to tradition and form. After her initial learning from her mother, who was a classical singer, Aruna, at the age of 10, became a disciple of the legendary T. Brinda. (T. Brinda is from the family of T. Balasaraswathi and T. Viswanathan—pioneers who brought South Indian classical music to the United States.) She was the first to introduce the Abhang, a distinctive folk music form from Western India, into a traditional Southern Indian Carnatic concert. She has also collaborated with leading musicians such as Dominique Vellard of France (classical liturgical, medieval, and Gregorian chants); Noureddine Tahiri of Morocco (Arabo-Andalusian music); Christian Bollmann of Germany (neo-classical music); Bollywood singer Shankar Mahadevan; mandolin virtuoso U.Srinivas, dancer Chandralekha; and multi-instrumentalist Ranjit Barot.
Tyshawn Sorey, multi-instrumentalist and composer
Newark-born multi-instrumentalist and composer Tyshawn Sorey (b. 1980) is celebrated for his incomparable virtuosity, effortless mastery and memorization of highly complex scores, and extraordinary ability to blend composition and improvisation in his work. He has performed nationally and internationally with his own ensembles, as well as with such artists as John Zorn, Vijay Iyer, Roscoe Mitchell, Muhal Richard Abrams, Wadada Leo Smith, Marilyn Crispell, Steve Lehman, Evan Parker, and Myra Melford, among many others.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cambalache
Cambalache is the direct result of Los Angeles musicians, community workers, and artists creating a space and cultivating relationships with Jarocho musicians and community workers in Veracruz, Mexico. Their primary concept of organizing and exchange comes from the “el fandango” model which is: building community through participatory music. In January of 2003, Los Angeles music group Quetzal, along with a dozen other musicians, visual artists, writers, and community workers from LA visited Xalapa, Veracruz to help organize and form part of the first encuentro Chicana/o/Jarocha/o. This dialogue, from which a myriad of projects, recordings, writings, performances, and relationships have evolved, extended that concept of el fandango to a transnational network of artists, community workers in Veracruz, and the Chicano and Mexican immigrant communities in Los Angeles.
Cesar Castro lead vocals, requinto jarocho, jarana, quijada
Xochi Flores vocals, jarana tercera, zapateado
Chuy Sandoval vocals, jarana segunda, jarana tercera, pandeiro
Juan Perez bass
Joana Carneiro, conductor
Noted for her vibrant performances in a wide diversity of musical styles, Joana Carneiro has attracted considerable attention as one of the most outstanding young conductors working today. In 2009, she was named music director of Berkeley Symphony, succeeding Kent Nagano and becoming only the third music director in the 40-year history of the orchestra. She also currently serves as official guest conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra, working there at least four weeks every year. In January 2014 she was appointed principal conductor of the Orquesta Sinfonica Portuguesa.
Calder Quartet
The Calder Quartet, called “outstanding” and “superb” by the New York Times, performs a broad range of repertoire at an exceptional level, always striving to channel and fulfill the composer’s vision. Already the choice of many leading composers to perform their works – including Christopher Rouse, Terry Riley and Thomas Adès – the group’s distinctive approach is exemplified by a musical curiosity brought to everything they perform, whether it’s Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, or sold-out rock shows with bands like The National or The Airborne Toxic Event. Winners of the 2014 Avery Fisher Career Grant, they are known for the discovery, commissioning, recording and mentoring of some of today’s best emerging composers (over 25 commissioned works to date).
Benjamin Champion, composer
Benjamin Champion (15) is a sophomore, studying composition and piano at Idyllwild International Arts Academy in Idyllwild, CA. Ben began his piano composition studies in 2011 with his parents, Chris and Sandy Champion. He has also studied piano with Dr. John Walker from SDSU and composition with Kevin Michael Sullivan at Idyllwild. Ben currently studies composition with Mark Carlson of UCLA, and piano with Dr. Jeanette Louise Yaryan, and Parvati Mani at Idyllwild. Under Dr. Walker’s instruction, Benjamin won first place in the 2013 Grant Piano competition and the South Dakota Music Teacher’s Association for piano and composition, Junior Division. In the summer of 2014, Benjamin was chosen to study and perform as a Young Artist at the Dakota Sky International Piano Festival. Here he studied piano with Dr. Paul Tuntland Sanchez, Jacob Ertl, Dr. Gregory DeTurck, Adam Golka, Angelina Gadeliya, and Jon Kimura Parker. Benjamin also attended the Idyllwild Summer Music Camp, where he studied with Dr. Jeanette Yaryan, Parvati Mani, and Doug Ashcraft. In the summer of 2015, Ben returned to the Young Artist program at Dakota Sky International Piano Festival. He studied with Dr. Gregory DeTurk from University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Douglas Humpherys from Eastman. Benjamin has written music for piano, string quartet, vocal and chamber ensembles, and orchestra. Benjamin aspires to pursue music composition at the conservatory level.
Phyllis Chen, toy pianist and composer
Phyllis Chen is a pianist, toy pianist, and composer whose musical interests have led in numerous directions as a soloist and collaborative artist. In 2007, Chen founded the UnCaged Toy Piano Composition Competition to encourage composers to write new music for the instrument. Since its inception, the call has received over 200 toy piano pieces from composers around the globe. In 2011, she launched the first biennial UnCaged Toy Piano Festival: three days featuring new works for toy piano and a variety of toy piano performers. Each year the festival has been greeted with great enthusiasm, with audience members crossing state borders and oceans to attend.
Robby Good, composer
Robby Good (15) is a sophomore at Hart High School in Santa Clarita. Robby started his musical journey at age 6 with piano lessons, and is currently studying piano with Richard Parizer. He started playing percussion at age 9 and is currently studying under Matt Cook. At 12 years of age, Robby started taking composition, percussion, and ensemble classes at California Institute of the Arts through the Saturday CAP Program. Robby’s first original percussion composition made its debut at the Cal Arts Spring Concert in 2014. In May of 2014, Robby was recognized by Assemblyman Scott Wilk for his dedication to Music Composition. In 2016, he received an honorable mention in the ACF NextNotes High School Composition Awards. While at Hart High, Robby has had the privilege to be a part of the Hart High marching and jazz bands as well as the acclaimed Wind Ensemble under the musical direction of Anthony Bailey. Robby was selected as a percussionist to the 2015 SCSBOA All-Southern High School Honor Symphonic Band. He received a Superior Rating on marimba from the SCSBOA Solo Ensemble. He was also selected to perform in the William S. Hart High School All District Honor Band as a percussionist and pianist under the direction of Professor Sharon Lavery from USC. Robby is a member of the California Scholarship Federation and the National Jr. Honor Society. He currently studies music composition with Professor Ian Krouse of UCLA.
Sharon Hurvitz, composer
Sharon Hurvitz (17) has been a Composer Fellow of the LA Philharmonic since 2013. She recently won First Prize in the High School Division of the 2015 Robert Avalon International Competition for Composers, is a Music Composition Honorable Mention Winner (2016) and Merit Winner (2015) of two National YoungArts Foundation Competitions, was a 2014 Finalist in the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, and a 2015 Finalist in the National Young Composers Challenge. She also was First Place winner two years in a row at the Music Teacher’s Association of California Composers Today State Contest and has been granted its highest accolade for high school and college-age composers, a five-year (2015-2020) honorary membership in The Young Composers Guild. She also was recently commissioned by the Olympia Philharmonic Society for performance by its Youth Orchestra in June 2016. Sharon is a graduate of Yamaha’s International Junior Original Concert Program, where starting at age ten, she performed her own compositions in four U.S. National Yamaha Junior Original Concerts and two National Association of Music Merchants Conventions, including NAMM’s 2012 opening Breakfast of Champions, while studying composition with Yamaha Music Academy Director, Carlton Liu. Now taking piano repertoire lessons with Mark Richman, she has performed in four Celebration of Young Talent Concerts (2 Concerto, 2 Chamber), and numerous other recitals for solo, chamber and piano 4-hands. Sharon also studied violin for 8 years with Chyi-Yau Lee of the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, and took four years of cello at public schools in San Gabriel, California, where she became Principal Cellist with the Advanced Orchestra and recipient of a 2012 U.S. National School Orchestra Award. She then enrolled in the Classical Piano Department of the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, where she has won its 2014 and 2015 Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Music – Piano, and is also a 2015 College Board AP Scholar with Honor. Sharon is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, having studied at the Chinese School of San Marino for 8 years.
Carla Kihlstedt
Though Carla Kihlstedt began her journey with music as a classical violinist, she has become equally committed to the craft of singing, songwriting, composing, and improvising. She is a founding member of a wide variety of ensembles, including Tin Hat, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Rabbit Rabbit, The Book of Knots, Minamo, and Fred Frith’s Cosa Brava.
Tania León
Tania León is highly regarded as a composer and conductor, and for her accomplishments as an educator and advisor to arts organizations. A founding member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, León instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series and co-founded the Sonidos de las Américas festivals with the American Composers Orchestra. In 2010 she launched the organization “Composers Now” and the month-long Composers Now Festival, celebrating living composers of all genres throughout New York City.
Eric Dudley, conductor
Through his activities as a conductor, vocalist, pianist, and composer, Eric Dudley enjoys a busy schedule of performances in the United States and abroad. After distinguished tenures as assistant conductor for both the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Princeton Symphony, he recently appeared as principal conductor for the 2015 Bendigo Festival of Exploratory Music in Australia. Among his latest guest conducting engagements are the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, Hartford Symphony Orchestra (CT), Adelphi Chamber Orchestra (NJ), TENET Vocal Ensemble (NY), Signal Ensemble (NY), International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), and the Melbourne International Arts Festival. He served for four years on the part-time faculty of Mannes College in New York as director of the Mannes Prep Philharmonic and The New School Chorus, and begins his next appointment as music director of the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra in the 2016–17 concert season.
As a founding member of Roomful of Teeth, Dudley is a performer on the group’s 2014 Grammy Award–winning debut album; their latest album, Render, was nominated in the same category in 2016 and includes one of his compositions. For eight seasons, Dudley has also been a tenor in the Grammy-nominated Choir of Trinity Wall Street, where in addition to his role as an ensemble and solo singer, he has prepared the choir for performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, performed as a pianist and harpsichordist on Trinity’s chamber series, and served as assistant and guest conductor for a number of the Trinity Choir and Baroque Orchestra’s concert offerings. His own works have received premieres by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Roomful of Teeth, Quey Percussion, and through a residency grant from Meet the Composer and the New England Foundation for the Arts. Born in Canada and raised in Connecticut, Dudley received his bachelor’s degree in composition from the Eastman School of Music, and earned master’s and doctorate degrees in orchestral conducting as the recipient of the Dean’s Prize from Yale.
Dina El Wedidi
With her powerful, nuanced voice and authentic style, Egyptian singer and composer Dina El Wedidi (دينا الوديدي) has spent the past six years carving out her place in the Egyptian music scene. While studying oriental languages at the University of Cairo, Dina joined El Warsha Theatre Troupe, exploring Egyptian folklore and performing in such unlikely places as a Cairo prison, and later she performed classical Egyptian and Arabic songs with the Habayebna band. These experiences pushed Dina to sing in many styles, and were the impetus for her to begin composing her own songs. In 2011, she took the fundamental next step and formed her own band; from here her success has soared.
Ara Guzelimian, Ojai Talks Director
Provost and dean of The Juilliard School, Ara Guzelimian is the former senior director and artistic advisor to Carnegie Hall and artistic director from 1992 to 1997 of the Ojai Music Festival, where he worked closely with Festival music directors Pierre Boulez, John Adams, Kent Nagano, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Emanuel Ax. Guzelimian also served as artistic administrator of the Aspen Music Festival and was associated with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 15 years as producer of the orchestra’s national radio broadcasts and as artistic administrator. He has been active as a radio producer and has written for numerous publications. Guzelimian was awarded the title Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government for his contributions to French music and culture.
Amin Maalouf, poet
Born in Beirut in 1949, Amin Maalouf has lived in France since 1976. After studying sociology and economics, Maalouf joined the Lebanese daily An-Nahar, for which he travelled the world covering numerous events, from the fall of the Ethiopian monarchy to the last battle of Saigon. Forced to emigrate by the war in Lebanon, he settled in Paris, where he resumed journalism, and from where he started to travel again, from Mozambique to Iran and from Argentina to the Balkans. He became editor of the international edition of An-Nahar, then editor-in-chief of the weekly Jeune Afrique, before giving up all his posts to dedicate himself to literature.
Luca Mendoza, composer
Luca Mendoza (17) a junior at Crossroads School, studies Jazz piano with Alan Pasqua, classical piano with Rina Dokshitsky and plays in Lee Secard’s Colburn Jazz ensembles and Evan Avery’s Crossroads A Band. Luca is the 2016 National YoungArts Finalist for Jazz piano and Merit Jazz composition winner. Also this year, Luca won the Jazz performance LA Music Center Spotlight Award after being the Honorable Mention Spotlight recipient in 2015. He received an Outstanding Solo Award at the Monterey NextGen Jazz Festival and four Downbeat Magazine Student Music Awards for composition. He has been chosen for the 2016 Monterey NextGen Jazz Orchestra, and was a participant in the Vail Jazz Workshop and Brubeck Jazz Colony. Luca has also been a part of the Colburn Musical Encounters for five years, fostering music education throughout Los Angeles inner city schools. His other awards include first or honorable mentions in the Southwest Youth Music Festival and Glendale classical competitions as well as a solo award and first place in the Fullerton Jazz Festival. He has also recently performed at the Panama Jazz Festival and chamber music with the Elizabeth Mandell Music Institute during a live radio broadcast.
Andrew Moses, composer
Andrew Moses (17) is a composer and clarinetist from Los Angeles. Hailed at age 13 as “an artist to watch” and “a musician of enormous talent”, his compositions have been performed, premiered, and read by groups such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Calder Quartet, and the Argus Quartet. Andrew has been a Composer Fellow with LA Phil since 2013, and continues in 2016-2017 as an LA Phil Senior Fellow. His chamber works have been performed in concert as part of the 2015 Hear Now Festival of New Music in Los Angeles, by wild Up at the Regent Theater as part of the LA Phil’s “Next on Grand” Festival, as part of the Yellow Barn Young Artists Program in Vermont, and in readings by the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Los Angeles Philharmonic Chamber Ensembles. The LA Phil premiered two short symphonic works of his at Walt Disney Concert Hall in the past two seasons. Upcoming projects include a commission by the LA Phil for their groundbreaking Green Umbrella new music series to be premiered in October and conducted by John Adams. He has participated in masterclasses with composers such as Kaija Saariaho, John Corigliano, Magnus Lindberg, Christopher Theofanidis, and Esa-Pekka Salonen; and he is currently a student of Andrew Norman. As a clarinet student of Dr. Margaret Thornhill, Andrew made his solo New York City recital debut last year at the home of Charles and Susan Avery Fischer as part of iPalpiti Musicales. He has been featured twice on From the Top on NPR and is a recipient of From the Top’s Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award. He was a winner of the 2014 Young Musicians Foundation National Debut Concerto Competition, the Torrance Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition, the Beverly Hills Auditions, and the Midland National Young Artist Competition. Andrew has thrice participated in the Yellow Barn Young Artists Festival in Vermont; and he is a Junior of iPalpiti Artists International. Andrew has appeared as a concerto soloist with several area orchestras, having performed as concerto soloist in the Walt Disney Concert Hall at the age of 11. Committed to serving the community through Arts Leadership Initiatives, the California Senate joined in recognizing his contributions to the local arts and presented Andrew with the “Making a Difference Award”. In his spare time, he enjoys taekwondo (he is a third degree black belt), poetry, and his community of faith.
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros, composer, performer and humanitarian is an important pioneer in American Music. Acclaimed internationally, for four decades she has explored sound — forging new ground for herself and others.
Through improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation she has created a body of work with such breadth of vision that it profoundly effects those who experience it and eludes many who try to write about it.