Ojai’s Crown Jewel: Ojai Valley Inn & Spa
905 Country Club Rd
Phone: 805 646 1111
Website: OjaiResort.com
Often cited as one of the top resorts in the country, the famed Ojai Valley Inn & Spa offers a complete vacation experience, featuring luxurious rooms, extensive spa services, a variety of delicious restaurants, and a picturesque golf course, all surrounded by stunning views of the Topa Topa mountains and Ojai’s pink moment. Conveniently located a 10 minute walk from Libbey Bowl (or an even shorter bike ride), the Ojai Valley Inn is connected to the Libbey Bowl and downtown Ojai by the Ojai Valley Trail.
Festival patrons receive as special room rate at the Inn. Click here to book online or use group code MUSIC when making your reservation.
The Oakridge Inn
780 North Ventura Avenue
Phone: 805 649 4018
Website: Oakridgeinn.com
If you’re looking for another lodging alternative in the Ojai Valley during Festival weekend, The Oakridge Inn is just the place for you. The Oakridge Inn is located in Oak View, a small Ojai Valley community nestled among spreading oaks, surrounded by tree-covered mountains, beautiful parks, museums, historical sites, and recreational facilities.
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Click on a photo to view or download a high-res version using the links above.
Contact Gina Gutierrez or call 805 646 2094 ext. 104 for additional images.
Inuksuit, John Luther Adams, and Ojai
Just before the new year, influential music critic Alex Ross released several end of year lists. He named the Festival’s own Thomas Morris as one of the Persons of the Year, and released his list of the greatest performances of 2011. One of the selected highlights was the performance of John Luther Adams’ “Inuksuit” at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. Written for Steve Schick, Inuksuit–the title is derived from the stone cairns used by the indigenous peoples of the Arctic–is an arresting piece for 9-99 percussion performers who are located throughout a large space (it was originally intended to be performed outdoors), allowing audience members to remain stationary or to move through the performers at will. Watch excerpts from the Armory performance.
Lucky for us, we don’t have to travel to New York to witness Inuksuit. The 2012 Festival will kick off with the piece’s West Coast premiere on Thursday Evening at 5pm. The premiere will be a free community performance featuring 48 percussionists led by Steven Schick, including professional musicians, music students from Southern California universities and colleges, and local musicians from Ojai. They will be placed throughout Libbey Park and Bowl to create a truly unique, interactive musical experience.
Luther Adams is no stranger to such intersections and interactions between space and sound. Described by the New Yorker as “one of the most original musical thinkers of the 21st century,” his works take the vast natural landscapes and the indigenous cultures of his adopted Alaska as their inspiration. Spurred by his deep interest in environmental conservation, Luther Adams’ compositions create a bridge between human experience and the natural world, bringing audiences greater awareness and a heightened connection with nature. Many of his works take their material directly from nature itself. In The Place Where You Go To Listen, for instance, Luther Adams used seismological readings and geophysical data in composing.
In many ways Luther Adams’ compositions are a perfect fit for the outdoor setting of Libbey Bowl, and the 2012 Festival will feature several of his works. After Inuksuit on Thursday, the evening concert will also feature Red Arc/Blue Veil, performed by Marc-André Hamelin and Steve Schick. Luther Adams’ work returns on Sunday night, where Leif Ove Andsnes will join Hamelin to perform Dark Waves. Click here to listen to a preview.
This year’s Festival is promising to be a truly unique intersection of music, place, and idea. If you have not yet purchased your tickets for this year’s Festival, you can do so online, or by calling 805.646.2053.
For more information on John Luther Adams and to read his writing on music, composition, and the environment, visit his website.
Confessions of a Teenage ‘Metro Gnome’
György Ligeti’s fluxus score to ‘Poème Symphonique’ spends little time discussing the performance of the work itself. Instead, he addresses a more pressing matter: acquiring 100 metronomes. Music stores, newspaper advertisements, and Maecenas are some of the sources that Ligeti encourages to bribe with program note recognition etc. If a rich patron were to simply buy Ligeti 100 metronomes, the piece would be “dedicated to him alone.”
When Artistic Director Tom Morris pitched the project to me in 2007, he lowered the cone of silence. “We’ve located the metronomes, but now I need you to assemble a team to set them off at the opening night concert.” Six cardboard boxes of time-keeping devices had just arrived from a performance of ‘Poème Symphonique’ in Austin, Texas. We were armed and ready.
Ten tables with ten metronomes each ringed the bowl at the opening night concert. Pianists Amy Williams and Helena Bugallo gave the signal to my team and the clicking commenced. While the sound of one metronome is regular and percussive, multiplied one hundred times, the result is quite different—imagine rain on a tin roof. But one by one, the upward pendulums froze until the heroic last stand of the final metronome. Beats away from death, the wooden pyramid hypnotized the audience. A long pause was observed when the last click sounded.
Albert Behar is a composer and past intern at the Ojai Music Festival. He is currently running around Paris with an accordion in search of jazz manouche. To find out more about his French alter-ego visit: http://accordion.albertbehar.com