Listen to KUSC’s 2015 Festival Preview with Gail Eichenthal & Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris
With only days to go before the Festival begins, get ready by listening to the Festival Preview podcast from KUSC. Featuring host Gail Eichenthal and Festival Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris, learn about the Festival’s very first percussionist Music Director and what he has in store for audiences.
John Luther Adams on “Sila: The Breath of the World”
Composer John Luther Adams is no stranger to Ojai, with performances of his works in 2012 and 2013, including the ‘Inuksuit‘, featuring musicians placed throughout Libbey Park. Adams returns to Ojai this year for the West Coast Premiere of his new work ‘Sila: The Breath of the World’. Here he discusses the genesis of the piece and the significant differences in pieces written to be performed and heard outdoors.
“Songs are thoughts which are sung out with the breath when people let
themselves be moved by a great force…”
– Orpingalik, a Netsilik elder
In Inuit tradition the spirit that animates all things is sila, the breath of
the world. Sila is the wind and the weather, the forces of nature. But
it’s also something more. Sila is intelligence. It’s consciousness. It’s
our awareness of the world around us, and the world’s awareness of
us.
Over the past four decades most of my music has been inspired by the
outdoors, but heard indoors. With Inuksuit – for nine to ninety-nine
percussionists – I finally composed music intended from the start to be
performed and heard outdoors. In Sila: The Breath of the World, I
continue this exploration with a full orchestral palette.
Ojai & Site-Determination by Ross Karre, ICE percussionist and Director of Production
Site-specificity is a common term in art production circles. I think most artists and audiences have a basic understanding of what it means. But I find site-specificity to be a glorification of a process which is required of all good art. Nothing is created in a vacuum. Nothing is presented in a vacuum. The site/context matters. All works are site specific by default but the process of creatively optimizing a work via its context can be the difference between a good realization and a bad one. A performance can either attempt to beat its head against the boundaries of a context or it can ask a simple question, “What changes do I make to this piece to transcribe it for this place?”
It’s a question we’ve been asking from the very first brainstorming sessions for the Ojai Festival programming and production. Whether it’s the Libbey Bowl presentations of intricate sequences of Boulez, Varèse, and Xenakis or the works of John Luther Adams in the park, every program must ask the question.
The answers aren’t always obvious. And some works lend themselves to subtle (or drastic) changes to create a symbiotic relationship between piece and place. In Pauline Oliveros’ works, space and sound are codependent variables. The scores are open and flexible enough to allow extemporaneous performance decisions which are guided by the space: its reverberations, its noise floor, and its general ambiance. From one interpretation to the next, a space may have a more profound impact on a performance than the instrumentation itself! (Note the radical differences in each performance of George Lewis’ Artificial Life on digitice.org, ICE’s digital media library.)
Happy Anniversary HumanArts!
The Ojai Music Festival is fortunate to be part of a strong community of residents and businesses supporting the arts in the Ojai Valley. One of our longtime friends is HumanArts Gallery located in the downtown Arcade. Owners Hallie and Stan Katz share their story of how intertwined the Festival is with their move to Ojai.
It was May 30, 1975 and most of the action was in Libbey Park where Michael Tilson Thomas was preparing to conduct the Ojai Music Festival. In a much smaller venue across the street there was another buzz happening — a new gallery in town was hosting its grand opening –- it was one of the only galleries in town at that time! Three couples, fairly new to town, decided to show an eclectic mix of pottery, jewelry, paintings, and sculpture, some of which they themselves made.
Truly one of the first places dedicated to contemporary fine craft in Southern California, it was known then as Running Ridge Gallery. The original partners were Bob and Barbara Grabowski, Bob’s sister Ruth Farnham and her husband John, and Jett and Sharon Spencer. Bob, Jett, and Sharon made jewelry; Ruth was a painter; and John was a sculptor. Barbara was the business manager.
Happy 90th Birthday Pierre Boulez!
Happy 90th Birthday to Pierre Boulez! We’re kicking off our celebrations by unveiling our Boulez In Ojai timeline – it’s a work in progress and we’ll be adding new photos and material in the coming weeks. Don’t forget to get your tickets to the Wednesday, June 10th Boulez At 90 event, featuring the West Coast Premiere of Beyond the Score® A Pierre Dream: A Portrait of Pierre Boulez.
Christina McPhee: How Ojai Inspires Me As An Artist
The audience members of the Ojai Music Festival are as eclectic, imaginative and passionate as the music performed and the artists who are engaged in the creative process. Once such patron is Christina McPhee, visual artist from the Central Coast, who shared her work with us inspired by the 2014 Festival.
The Muslin-Drum // Ligeti Iterations :
As a child, I found sanctuary in piano practice. Each evening the required hour came with the delight of the fall of the keys, the fascination of synaesthesia’s colors with chromatic chords, and escape from external pressures. For no audience but my own brain, my ears connected with digits, and with structures of flight. Later I sought to materialize this experience in painting.
With my partner I built canvasses in translucent muslin, coated in clear, slightly crystalline rabbit skin glue, with taut surface like a drum. From the first the support and surface conditions set up a performance situation around color-shapes, linear thresholds and tensions of the stretched canvas. Interacting with these constraints set me into a graphic predictive process, to ramify lines from sound. The delicate surfaces pinged as the graphite slides across the rabbit skin. Dyes threw across the slightly glittering crystals of rabbit-skin embedded in the glue ground. The soft swish of liner brush extended murmur and glissando. Tcherepnin, Varese, Cage and Harrison crossed through this matrix. None stayed as long as Ligeti. Hundreds of repeats, listening to the cd of György Ligeti’s Piano Etudes, Books 1 and 2, as performed by Jeremy Denk in a Nonesuch recording of 2012, cast the studies into iterative material abstractions. Then I heard Denk play them live in concert at the Ojai Music Festival, in June 2014. An indelible impression, almost, a neurologic imprint…Elements of surprise, hurling passages, glissandos, rushes and stillnesses, darknesses leaching into light, shapes tumbling and subsisting in secret rhythms— these formal and performance incidents translate a code for a kinetic action through the instrument of the body onto the radiant surface.
10 Questions with John Luther Adams
Written by M. Sean Ryan with permission from BMI.
In writing or analyzing a piece of music, the notion of space is both multifaceted and unavoidable. For John Luther Adams, it is the root. His environmentally-minded compositions aren’t just inspired by geography and places he finds meaningful. Sometimes their performance demands musicians forgo the stage, scattering strategically instead around vast indoor and outdoor venues.
In this way, Adams has garnered a reputation for highlighting how we fit in to the world around us, musical or not. Pieces like “Inuksuit,” or, more recently, “Sila,” continue to redefine the immediate environment in which they’re performed, while his titanic opus “Become Ocean” has earned him two GRAMMY nominations as well as last year’s Pulitzer Prize in music. In addition to these prestigious honors, Columbia University’s School of the Arts recently announced that Adams will be awarded their $50,000 William Schuman Award this fall. The award recognizes “the lifetime achievement of an American composer whose works have been widely performed and generally acknowledged to be of lasting significance.”
On a recent call from New York City, the 62-year-old Adams opened up about the road that’s led him to his current standing as a world-renowned composer.
How did your relationship with BMI begin?
It would go back to the 1980s. I was a young composer thinking about affiliating with a performing rights organization, and ultimately what persuaded me — what did it was Ralph Jackson. A couple of years ago I wrote a piece on Ralph’s retirement singing his praises and talking about who he is and the difference he has made, not only in my life but in the lives of so many other composers.
In the larger musical landscape of new music, classical music, contemporary concert music — whatever you call this stuff that I’m involved with — Ralph is truly a force of nature. Now Deirdre Chadwick has taken over and like Ralph she’s an oboist. And like Ralph she’s a strong personality who cares passionately about this music. I feel really lucky to be working with her now.
In that stage of your career, when you moved to Alaska in the late ‘70s, your focus was political. Was music on the backburner?
Nothing took a backseat to anything else. I thought I could do it all: I thought I could be a full time environmental crusader; I thought I could live like Henry David Thoreau in the woods; I thought I could be a working composer, and I thought I could have a serious personal relationship and also play in the Fairbank Symphony. It took me a decade or so to realize that I had to make some choices. It was a very heady time. To be young and idealistic in Alaska in the late ‘70s and then into the early ‘80s — I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
2015 Festival Inside Look With Steven Schick
Last June, Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris and 2015 Music Director Steven Schick sat down with American Public Media’s Performance Today host Fred Child to discuss the upcoming Festival and their approach to creating a playful and provocative program.
View the full program >>
Read 2015 artist bios >>
Q & A With Festival Producer Elaine Martone
Congratulations to Festival Producer Elaine Martone for her Grammy nomination for Producer of the Year in the classical music category!
Elaine was brought on as the Festival producer in 2012. Prior to joining us, she was executive vice president of production at Telarc Records for 29 years. As a key executive in planning and creative decision-making, she managed more than 1,500 projects and was accountable for more than $6 million annually in production costs. A world-class producer, she is a five-time Grammy Award winner in both Classical and Jazz.
Born in Rochester, New York, Elaine moved to Cleveland to study oboe with aspirations of playing with a symphony orchestra. A graduate of Ithaca College with a Bachelor of Music degree, she was taught the basics of the industry by Telarc founders Robert Woods and Jack Renner, quickly grasping what determined the famed Telarc sound and becoming an accomplished editor and an integral part of the management team. Elaine has served as producer on more than 200 recordings, both classical and jazz, including those by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with Robert Spano and Robert Shaw, The Cleveland Orchestra with Franz Welser-Möst, the Philharmonia Orchestra with Ben Zander and jazz greats Ray Brown, Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson, Tierney Sutton, and McCoy Tyner to name a few.
Elaine was executive director of Spring for Music produced at Carnegie Hall with founding directors Thomas W. Morris, David V. Foster and Mary Lou Falcone, music industry legends.
With her husband, Robert Woods, she has formed a music enterprise, Sonarc Music, and is pursuing her passion, producing great music and musicians, as well as working with talented young people. She was a founding board member of Red {An Orchestra}, which completed seven seasons in Cleveland, Ohio.
A Design Preview by Digs Floral Designer, Lynn Malone
Lynn Malone, floral designer and owner of Digs Floral and Botanic Design in Ojai, will be making her 2014 Holiday Home Look In debut at the Schmidt home in Rancho Matilija. Lynn sat down to write us a blog about her plans and inspirations for the decor.
With the excitement of fall color in full bloom it was tempting to style the Schmidt home for Thanksgiving this year, but as a floral designer, I’m equally excited about holiday cheer and winter whites. When the homeowner and I met to plan the floral décor within this beautiful palette of a home, we decided that it would be fun to use floral designs that could be versatile for both holidays so that they could be used for the entire season. In designing the florals, we agreed upon a few priorities. While a few pieces will be works of art, designed to compliment the exquisite art collection in the home, we wanted to keep many of the floral designs simple, so that guests could easily replicate them in their own homes.
Entering the home through the massive front doors, guests will be greeted with warm traditional holiday looks designed to inspire a holiday mood. Inside, fresh, contemporary holiday designs will be showcased, along with a bit of the unexpected, and a touch of whimsy here and there for fun. Floral colors have been chosen to accent the magnificent collection of artwork displayed throughout the home.
Steven Schick 2015 Festival Playlist
2015 Music Director Steven Schick shared with us a story of how he walked from San Diego at the Mexican border to San Francisco to propose to his wife Brenda. Walking the length of the coast, Steve says, he was “constantly engaged in this world of noise….through your ears you know where we are, what we’re thinking, where we are in the world.”
In that vein, we recently asked Steve if he would make a curated playlist – a list of pieces to listen to in anticipation of the 2015 Festival. He enthusiastically responded with an annotated “Ojai Themes Listening List,” which we have put into audio and video playlists below. While we were able to find most of what was on Steve’s list online, there were some that eluded us…if you happen to stumble across them, let us know and we’ll add them in!
Meet Candida Condor: New Festival Subscriber
“Earlier this year, 2014, a very dear friend of mine, Annat Provo, invited me to share her series tickets to the Ojai Music Festival. Although I have heard of the Festival for years, I had not attended before. I was delighted to accept her generosity!
The quantity, quality and variety of experience offered by the Festival surprised me. I loved going up to Meditation Mount in the early morning, and staying up late in the balmy evening to be transported by Rothko Chapel – my new favorite music.
Another delightful surprise was the interesting conversation we had with those seated around us. One handsome fellow sitting just in front of me told us about the Rothko Chapel in Houston, about the large canvases hung on the four walls of the spacious room. About the natural light built into the design of the building so that the canvases constantly change as the sun and clouds move across the sky. If I go to Houston, I won’t miss it! And I’ll have the music on my iPod…
Another delightful man, and long-time Festival friend of my friend, was so knowledgeable about the music, the musicians and the composers, and shared so graciously, he brought a greater depth to our appreciation and enjoyment of the excellently executed performances.
I was struck by the community atmosphere I felt everywhere I went. It was such a friendly, warm and welcoming experience. I felt embraced by the music, the town, the weather, and everyone I encountered.
So I now have my own series season ticket and seat — sitting right next to my good friend!”
– submitted by Candida Condor
Have a story to share? Send us an email at [email protected]
Fluid Borders: The Boundless World of Percussionists
Percussionists are different. Their musical world has no fixed boundaries; there is no limit to the instruments they play and the sounds they make. There are no pretentious barriers between nature and artifice, no strictures on performing indoors or out. Their precursors reach back to the dawn of time and members of their guild are found in every culture. Hand a percussionist a random rock or the most exquisitely forged gong and he or she will make it speak, sometimes with breathtaking virtuosity born of the simplest gestures by which we interact, though touch, with our material world. So what does it mean that Ojai’s 2015 music director is a percussionist? Quite a lot if that percussionist is Steven Schick.
No one has done more to champion, interpret, and expand the repertory of contemporary percussion music than Steven Schick. Not only has he mastered the entire solo repertory – and more than doubled its size through commissions – but as a conductor, educator, and author he has deepened our understanding of the role of percussion in music’s past, present, and future. More importantly, as an artist of broad interests and deep convictions he has explored cultural issues well beyond the already boundless frontiers of his chosen specialization.
Q & A With New Board President David Nygren
The Ojai Music Festival is pleased to announce the appointment of David Nygren as president of the board of directors, effective August 2014. David, who has served on the Ojai board since 2011, is the founder and CEO of Nygren Consulting LLC, which specializes in mergers and acquisitions, board effectiveness, organizational strategy, and executive competency assessment. His company balances Fortune 500 for-profit businesses with the non-profit sector where he works extensively with health systems and arts institutions including the New York Philharmonic and New World Symphony.
David was also the executive vice president at DePaul University, where he was awarded rank and tenure in the department of Psychology, teaching organizational theory and design, leadership, and corporate governance.
He assumes leadership of the board after Stephen (Mike) J.M. Morris, who served an extraordinary year of service as president. Mike will continue to serve on the Festival’s executive committee for a smooth transition.
Recently, David spoke with us about coming on the Ojai board, as well as his favorite Ojai moments.
OMF: What are some of your most memorable moments from past Festivals?
DN: My favorite moments are in the splendor of what we experience only here. I marvel at [artistic director] Tom Morris’ brilliance in convening artists from around the world in this beautiful setting and at the spell of their performances.
These have included the toy piano concert in the Libbey Park playground, the surprise appearance of the marching band last year, and early morning concerts at Meditation Mount. What strikes me over and over is the profound humility of the musicians when they take their bow, show their delight, and rejoice in the intimacy of the audience.
5 Things to Expect In 2015 Including Pipa Player Wu Man
Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris and Music Director Steven Schick have a lot to share about the 2015 Ojai Music Festival these next 11 months. Plans are underway and we thought we’d give you a glimpse of 5 things to get you started.
1. Performances of works by 19 living composers new to Ojai. Read more about it here >>
2. The West Coast premiere of John Luther Adam’s Sila: The Breath of the World. Learn more about his new outdoor work which makes its world premiere at the Lincoln Center Out of Doors. Click here >>
3. Festival debuts by ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble), pipa virtuoso Wu Man, cellist Maya Beiser, and San Diego based chamber ensemble Renga
4. Schick Machine directed by Paul Dresher performed by Steven Schick – a visually compelling world of mechanical devices, invented instruments, and seemingly infinite sonic possibilities. Watch here >>
5. A special pre-Festival event on Wednesday, June 10 of Pierre Boulez: A Portrait, a spectacular multi-media kaleidoscope production with narration, archive films clips, live music, and stage set by Frank Gehry, part of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Beyond the Score series.
There is so much more to share. Stay tuned as more details are in the works!
What Does Ojai Mean To You?
Each June for four days, Ojai is bustling with music lovers from all across the country, east to west and north to south. Curious and deeply committed patrons gather to experience provocative, unusual, and sometimes, challenging programs of music that encourage stretching musical expectations. As one patron explained, it’s “an eye opening (and ear opening) revelation.”
In fact, the number of Festival series subscribers has steadily increased in the last four years, almost 30% each year.
As one patron said in a recent survey: “Continue with bold decisions in modern music and keep the Ojai ambiance exactly as it is.”
To each his or her own. Everyone comes away with something different, something special about Ojai. Recently, we asked several of our patrons, “What Does Ojai Mean to You?” And in our usual, Ojai Festival fashion, they had a lot to say. Watch the video below:
Share your comments – what does Ojai mean to you?
Uri Caine Q&A: Mahler and His Music
Music Director Jeremy Denk invited artists, who share his passion for music and love for adventure, to join him on Thursday, June 12, the opening night of the Festival. Pianist and composer Uri Caine, who Jeremy describes as an “unbelievable genius,” will make his Ojai debut performing his own interpretation of works by Gustav Mahler.
In April, Uri toured the Libbey Bowl and shared his impressions about Ojai and how his interest in Mahler was born.
Relax and Visit Porch Gallery
by Lisa Casoni
The first Saturday after Heather and I moved to Ojai from Los Angeles we saw two horses parked outside the local coffee shop on our way to breakfast. We then had lunch at the Deer Lodge, a slightly off the beaten path, roadside bar/restaurant that is as much a part of the fabric of the community as the Ojai Valley Inn. By the time we sat down for dinner at Feast Bistro, the owners were introducing us to the other patrons as the “new girls in town.” That night, I was struck by two things, first, we weren’t in Los Ange
les anymore and, second, we needed to finish construction on our kitchen.
We moved to Ojai four years ago because we wanted to live in a “cosmopolitan small town” where we could walk everywhere. We weren’t asking for much. As long was no one screamed obscenities at us as we shuffled out to dinner, we were content. But, shortly, as humans often do, we wanted more. We wanted friends, community, artistic stimulation and a front porch.
Interview with Jeremy Denk in The Wall Street Journal
Words and Music: Classical pianist Jeremy Denk is equally at home at both types of keyboard
By DAVID MERMELSTEIN May 12, 2014 Wall Street Journal
Jeremy Denk lives surprisingly modestly for an American pianist of rising fame. The living room of his Upper West Side apartment barely contains his nearly 7-foot-long Steinway grand, so visitors are led to a tiny but light-filled kitchen, where last month he expounded on a range of musical and literary topics over herbal tea and green apples.
In person, Mr. Denk, who last year received a MacArthur fellowship and this year won the Avery Fisher Prize, exudes unpretentious learning and enthusiasm, qualities echoed not just in his playing, but also in his articles for The New Yorker and other publications. The opportunities to write came about thanks to his popular blog, Think Denk, inactive for almost a year because of his increasingly busy schedule. He recently promised Random House a book on piano lessons, an expansion of an essay published in The New Yorker last year.
“I always loved books and writing,” said the prematurely gray Mr. Denk, who turns 44 on Friday. Wearing a black V-neck sweater and charcoal trousers, he sat on an uncomfortable-looking kitchen chair. “Though I let it go for a while, succumbing to the single-mindedness you need to be a pianist, the blog seemed a natural way to return to that. And then The New Yorker wrote me, and that sort of freaked me out, causing me a whole new level of stress. It’s a very neurotic profession, writing. Blogging is much freer. And it had a wonderfully synergistic connection with my career. Now writing has become symbiotic—or parasitical. It can be very satisfying to write down something about music that’s important, just as there’s a thrill playing a phrase as you’ve always imagined it. It is weird being in these two professions at once, but it rises from music as origin. And they both demand a lot of time.”
Free time is increasingly scarce for Mr. Denk. Just back from São Paulo, he performs Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in Glendale, Calif., and L.A. this weekend. He’ll also play a selection of etudes by György Ligeti on that program, giving audiences a preview of his biggest commitment this season: the music directorship of the Ojai Festival in California, which runs June 12 to 15 and concludes with a concert featuring the bulk of Ligeti’s etudes.
Composed in the late 20th century, these short studies have become something of a specialty for the pianist. He performed six of them during his last solo recital in Manhattan, at the People’s Symphony Concerts last month. And he recorded most of them, to wide acclaim, on an album released by Nonesuch Records in 2012. “The conceptions in the etudes are death defying,” Mr. Denk said, explaining some of their appeal. “Even though they draw from the modern world, they reach back meaningfully to the world of Chopin in terms of lilt and color and phrasing. They are complex but visceral. Their gestures are well defined and powerful. There’s passages—little, seemingly innocuous ones—in which there’s slowing down, and every chord is immaculate and perfect and has wit and elegance. But it’s preposterous some of the things he writes and says you should do. It’s not exactly a perversity, but something like that.”
Mr. Denk, whose formative years were spent in almost equal part first in North Carolina, then in New Jersey and finally in New Mexico, is also widely admired for championing the music of Charles Ives and for his way with Bach’s ” Goldberg ” Variations, one of the keyboard’s most unforgiving milestones, which he recorded last year for Nonesuch on an album that also includes a novice-friendly DVD lecture by the pianist in lieu of liner notes. In typically self-effacing fashion, he described the bonus disc as “really more of a fireside chat.”
Yet despite the recent praise, his success with the ” Goldbergs ” was neither instant nor assured. “I’d agreed to learn it for my friend Toby Saks’s chamber festival, and then it was too late to back out,” he recalled, referring to a recital in Seattle in 2008. “The first performance was terrifying.” Subsequent engagements proved less taxing, so much so that “though I had been reluctant even to play it, I was suddenly touring with it. And then Bob Hurwitz “—the president of Nonesuch—”asked me to record it. He said I was making a unique statement, though I don’t claim that. But it does affect your life. You inhabit it, like a house.”
Bach doesn’t figure on the pianist’s programs at Ojai this year (he played the “Goldbergs” there in 2009), but he has his hands full with other concerns, especially the premiere of a work—subtitled “An Opera (of Sorts)”—for which he wrote the libretto. Titled “The Classical Style” and based on Charles Rosen’s seminal 1971 book of the same name, the endeavor, with music by Steven Stucky, was initially suggested by Mr. Denk as a joke before taking on a life of its own at the encouragement of Thomas W. Morris, Ojai’s long-serving artistic director. “I tried to write something rather serious but kept coming up with these comic thought-experiments,” Mr. Denk said, attempting to explain his concept. “It’s a little like ‘The Impresario’ of Mozart with Tom Stoppard’s ‘Travesties’ thrown in. So it’s not an opera in any conventional way. There’s a lot of spoken text and 18 characters—the singers have multiple roles. To the extent it has a plot, it’s prone to digressions and mishaps. People shouldn’t expect ‘Aida.'”
While acknowledging that “the very premise is absurd” and that the finished product is “music about music” on “a very wonky topic,” the pianist-cum-librettist clearly found the effort rewarding. “Steve and I did a lot of giggling during the workshop,” he said. “It’s very silly and joyful. It’s the world’s first and last musical vaudeville—probably.” Yet despite the self-deprecation, Mr. Denk cannot suppress some deeper feelings for the project, which is no surprise given his friendship with Mr. Rosen, who died in 2012 not long after granting permission for the adaptation. “I’m very happy about the ending,” Mr. Denk said. “I think it really captures something about Charles and about the book’s conclusion, which is very affecting and touching. Steve first went for funny in the score but then sweet and sincere. And the ending just blows me away. I was in tears several times when we played it through.”
Mr. Mermelstein writes for the Journal on classical music, film and television.
Ojai Named One of NPR’s Can’t-Miss Classical Music Festivals
We are thrilled to be named one of NPR’s most intriguing classical festivals. Ojai is in good company with esteemed and fascinating organizations including — to the east, Bard Music Festival, Caramoor, and Mostly Mozart, and to the west, Aspen and Moab.
According to NPR Music’s Tom Huizenga:
“What the Ojai Festival may lack in terms of its length it makes up with a concentrated supply of intriguing concerts in both early morning (Brooklyn Rider playing Glass at 8 a.m.) and late night (Uri Caine’s Sextet with Gershwin at 10:30 p.m.). Perhaps the most anticipated work on tap this year is the world premiere of The Classical Style: An Opera (of Sorts), a chamber opera based on pianist and pedagogue Charles Rosen’s book The Classical Style by festival music director and pianist Jeremy Denk and Pulitzer-winning composer Steven Stucky.”
Lisa Kaplan Returns to Ojai: Read Her Ojai Q&A
Ojai is a place where alumni enjoy returning, whether to perform or just enjoy the experience as an audience member. Lisa Kaplan is one such member of the Festival family. As one of the members of the groundbreaking ensemble eighth blackbird, Lisa was first here in 2006 when they made their Festival debut performing Frederic Rzewski’s Coming Together, and captivated the Ojai audience. It was at this Festival that Thomas W. Morris, artistic director, approached them to return to the Libbey Bowl as the Festival’s 2009 Music Director. After their memorable and fearless stint in this post, Lisa and the “birds” were asked back to open the new Libbey Bowl in 2011 performing Osvaldo Golijov’s Ayre with Dawn Upshaw. And Lisa didn’t stay away long – just last year she again soaked in the festival experience, this time as an audience member!
Now we will welcome her back as both a performer and as a supporter to her very good friend, Jeremy Denk. Read her recent Q&A:
OMF: This will be your 5th time back in Ojai to perform but 4th since you came last year to hang out and enjoy the music. How did it feel to be on the other side of the stage as an audience member?
Kap: It was really wonderful to be on the audience side of the Ojai Festival last year. So relaxing! But also a lot to take in in the course of four days. I have been an admirer of Mark Morris for as long as I can remember, and it was truly inspiring to come out to see h
ow he curated the festival. Highlights for me were, the John Luther Adams’ songbirdsongs performed on Meditation Mount at 8am where the sounds of the instrumental bird songs and the actual birds singing their song were completely blurred. Hearing Yulia Van Doren sing Ives and Cowell and Cage, sitting in on toy piano to play In C on a glorious, sunny morning, and Mark’s musical choreography to all of the dance. I was blown away by his piece to Samuel Barber’s “Excursions.” A piano work I’ve never liked but somehow with Mark’s choreography, it absolutely came to life for me. Now when I hear that piece, I can’t help but think of the dancing that goes with it.
OMF: What was your advice to Jeremy Denk once Tom Morris asked him to be Music Director for Ojai?
Kap: I told him that it would be a lot of work, but totally worth it! I encouraged him to do something bold and audacious that he may never have the opportunity to do otherwise. Ojai is a playground for those kinds of projects and has a devoted following that isn’t afraid of new work so it is the perfect opportunity to program something innovative or totally crazy!
OMF: This year we are paying tribute to those who inspire us as musicians, artists, and people as well as recalling an “Aha moment” during your path as an artist. Do you have one that you’d like to share?
Kap: I feel so fortunate to have been mentored and inspired by so many wonderful people over the course of my own career. Here’s a recent “Aha moment.”
Several years ago Jeremy and I were rehearsing Mozart’s exquisite 4-hand Sonata in F major. I was so consumed with wanting everything in my part to be absolutely perfect and as a result everything sounded safe and boring. Then, all of a sudden, I missed several notes in a run. I cursed out loud, and Jeremy looked over while still playing and said, “Great! After the first mistake, then the music can begin.” That’s what Sebök used to tell me. Don’t be so worried! Just play with total abandonment and the music will flow.”
I never played Mozart the same after Jeremy said that to me. I was so much less afraid to perform it and it was far easier to just have fun and make music together. The very best part about playing together with someone like Jeremy who is so talented, is that they up your game too. I always learn something new when I share the stage, (or bench) with him.
You can see Lisa Kaplan at the Sunday, June 15, 11am concert, performing in one of the “Canonade” pieces selected by Jeremy Denk. Buy tickets here >>
Artists Share Their “Aha Moments”
We recently asked a few of our artists to describe one of their Aha moments – an experience or piece that opened up the musical universe for them. Here are some of the responses we received:
“Early in my freshman year of college, a graduate violinist hired me to accompany her in John Adams’s Road Movies, having failed to convince any of her pianist colleagues to do so. I’d never heard Adams’s music before, much less played anything like it, and was initially nonplussed; on the page, the piece looked easy, repetitious, even boring. I was surprised to find it cycling endlessly through my head after rehearsal. It was catchy but also tough, and I spent hours with the violinist figuring out how to play it. By the time we performed Road Movies together, I was an Adams acolyte.
That experience taught me something about myself, which is that I figure out music by getting my hands dirty, through the drudgery of practice. It is the best way I know of to answer the questions: Where did this music come from? How does it work? What can I steal from it?”
– Timo Andres, composer and pianist
Read Timo’s Q&A and listen to his specially curated playlist >>
Rains Department Store At 100
When I first moved to Ojai 13 years ago from Santa Barbara, it felt like moving from a big ocean to a small pond. But after getting settled and having a chance to explore the Valley, I have come to find that not only is the weather almost always perfect, but while Ojai is a small town, it in fact has everything that a person could want – visitors and residents alike – all through a cozy network of family owned and operated businesses.
Some of my favorite haunts in town are J & B’s Coffee Connection (referred to as simply Coffee Connection by us locals), Bohemia (another great coffeehouse), Rainbow Bridge (supermarket and deli), and Rains Department Store. As you can see, my tastes center around coffee (organic, fair trade and shade grown), healthy food, and great specialty clothes and items. I enjoy being able to start my day with one of the two coffee houses, walk to Rainbow Bridge for lunch, and end my day browsing through Rains for myself, or for a novelty product for a gift.
Q & A with Timo Andres
Composer/Pianist Timo Andres will be making his Ojai debut this June on Saturday Evening. Recently, he answered a few questions and even put together his ‘Driving To Ojai North’ playlist.
Finish the sentence, “If I wasn’t performing/composing, I would be…”:
There are two ways to interpret this question: what do I do with my free time, and what is my second-choice (non-musical) profession.
The answer to the first is that there are endless ways I distract myself from “real work”—participating in infinite iMessage threads, the acquiring and preparing of foods from out-of-the-way corners of the city, prowling around thrift stores, riding or working on my bike, staying up too late with friends.
As for the second, I’ve always thought I’d have gone into a visual field if I weren’t a musician—perhaps graphic design or typography. As it is, I do a fair amount of these things as a side component of my job. Designing my website or laying out a score, for example, are both good practical and aesthetic challenges.
Composer John Luther Adams Wins Pulitzer Prize for Music
Congratulations to composer John Luther Adams who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for music for his composition Become Ocean, an orchestral work that was commissioned and premiered last year by the Seattle Symphony.
Festival Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris hailed John’s achievement, commenting: “Adams is a dear friend of Ojai, and one of the most creative of today’s composers. His unique voice blends exceptional musical sounds with the spirit of life around us into tapestries that thrill, entrance, and amaze.”
Ojai audiences have been treated to John’s works in 2012 with Inuksuit performed at Libbey Park, and 2013 with For Lou Harrison, songbirdsongs, and Strange and Sacred Noise.
Watch John at last year’s Ojai Talks as he discusses his music and inspirations >>
View the complete list of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize winners here >>