Ojai Quarterly: Q&A with Thomas W. Morris
OUTGOING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR TOM MORRIS TALKS UP THE OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL
After years at the helm of the Ojai Music Festival, Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris is ready for his next chapter. He says that the festival will be in good hands and that new creative directions are on his personal horizon. Morris ends his stay having fostered a legacy of eclecticism and invention, and he’s grateful for all that he’s learned at the helm of one of the world’s most iconic musical gatherings. On a sunny winter day, he took time to sit down with the Ojai Quarterly to reflect on his time introducing our ears to sounds strange and wonderful. conversation has been edited for length.
By JESSE PHELPS. Reprinted by permission by Ojai Quarterly / SPRING 2019
OQ: When did you come on board, and what did that process look like?
TOM MORRIS: My first Festival as Artistic Director was 2004. I was approached about three years before that. You know, the way we work, you have to plan three-plus years ahead. From my standpoint, the timing was impeccable because when I got the first call … I was going to retire from the Cleveland Orchestra. It was 17 years there and I decided at age 60, it was time to move on … And the other two things that were intriguing to me about this – I mean, I ran the Boston Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra for 35 years as the chief executive – but my real interest was in the artistic side. I was involved in all that in the orchestra world, I wasn’t responsible for it. And so, in essence, switching a career from the executive side to the artistic side was intriguing to me. It fit what I love. It actually focused it. Obviously, the reputation of the Festival goes without saying. But the fact that it was small-scale but high-impact also appealed to me.
OQ: Had you been to Ojai previously?
TM: I had. I started with the Boston Symphony in May, in the summer of 1969, and lo and behold, who should arrive as the Symphony Conductor but (current San Francisco Symphony M usic Director and seven-time Ojai Music Festival Music Director) Michael Tilson Thomas, a young hotshot conductor. And Michael, as I got to know him, was always talking about this Festival, the Ojai Music Festival, which I’d not heard of, and Ojai really gave Michael his break. But I never went to the festival, for various reasons, until 1996. And I fell in love with it.
OQ: You feel like there’s a different kind of integrity here, in service to the art?
TM: If you look at my career – where I went from the Boston Symphony, which is a huge conglomerate – Boston Symphony Orchestra Incorporated, which I was the CEO of, ran the Boston Symphony, it ran Tanglewood, it ran the Boston Pops – it’s massive. I went from there to the Cleveland Orchestra, which I think is the best anywhere, but it was a much smaller and more focused organization and it had a far greater belief system around the culture of art. And then to Ojai. So my whole career, I like to think of it as sort of an increasingly deep focus, less about size than meaning.
OQ: The impact of what you’re doing hasn’t lessened any.
TM: It’s gotten bigger in fact… Everyone thinks growth means bigger stuff. But it can also be smaller stuff or better stuff, or it can be different stuff.
OQ: What have you learned?
TM: It’s basically about a far broadened set of musical possibilities. And when I came here, I immediately sort of said, well, we’re not going to be orchestral. There are times in Ojai’s history when there was a lot of orchestra. I just didn’t want to do that. First of all, the facility is too small for a big 100-piece orchestra and also there’s a pretty great orchestra just down the road at Disney Hall. The music, to me, has grown from this magical setting and has this incredible audience. It s a magic alchemy, if you will. So I would describe my 16 years here as sort of the education of Tom Morris and the immersion of Tom Morris in these other worlds of music. Society’s changing, but the world of music is completely changing now. Because genres are disappearing and everything is melded together and in fact a lot of the creative excitement is actually between the genres.
OQ: Ojai really does offer this opportunity for that collision. I was fortunate to come and interview (2017 Musical Director) Vijay Iyer, and through that talk was inspired to go to the Sunday show where he was playing with (percussion master) Zakir Hussain and…(Indian Carnatic vocalist) Aruna Sairam…
Right! And that was like something transcendent. TIhat’s the only way to describe what I witnessed there.
TM: Of course! And you can’t describe what kind of music that was.
No.
TM: It was a collision of four artists who had not worked together before, who wanted to work together. And we created the opportunity for them to work. And I remember Vijay had said to me, you know, I’ve never worked with Zakir Hussain and I’ve never worked with Aruna Sairam and I want to do that. So we put it together. They all came with ideas and to watch the creation of music in front of your eyes- and the give and take and how it was morphing- you were watching creativity in real time.
OQ: High, high, high level creativity.
TM: Beyond high level. And to me, to be involved in that kind of artistry, that’s not something you simply can do in a symphony orchestra. So, my learning here has been one of vastly expanded horizons and expanding and changing personal tastes and a whole new world of artistic friends. And what’s interesting, I find, if you look at my work here, it’s very organic and cumulative.
OQ: It wasn’t a planned arc.
TM: What was really happening was as we started to try different things. It expanded the range of possibilities, which expanded the range of possibilities, and if you look at the sequence of Music Directors, you can see that each one was in such a completely different direction, which is one of the beauties here.
OQ: I imagine you wouldn’t be stepping away if you didn’t have full confidence in your successor.
TM: I have complete confidence in (incoming Artistic Director) Chad (Smith). I couldn’t have a better successor. In my view, Chad is creative, he’s got a broad range of interests. He’s been in the orchestral world, but all you have to do is look at what he’s been doing (as the COO) at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the range of artistic offerings there, which puts most other orchestral offerings to shame, in my view.
OQ: Do you think he’ll be as eclectic?
TM: What I hope is that he treats it as a learning laboratory for him, as I was able to do. What I’ve learned is that music exists in space, in a space, and how that space feels is where you pull the energy from. And this is one of the most spectacularly beautiful settings in the world.111ere’s nothing normal about the concert facilities. I mean, it’s outside, it’s amplified, and it has this audience which just is so into it. Every artist who comes says it’s the greatest audience we’ve ever played for because they trust, they respond, whether they like it or they don’t. In Ojai, it’s about the idea of Ojai. The Festival is about adventure, it’s about challenge, it’s about surprise.
OQ: There’s always the possibility of that magic we talked about.
TM: Correct. And it’ll always happen v somewhere. And think about that from an audience perspective.
OQ: Right. Just the act of attendance is in some way experimental. But with that experiment comes sort of an infinite range of possibility of experience.
TM: I’ve been widely quoted on this. I look at concerts as experiences, as events. It happens at a certain time. And I think we can learn something from sports events. Why do people go to live sports events?
OQ: You don’t know what the outcome is going to be.
TM: Correct. And every concert that I’m interested in putting on, and everything we do here, the outcome is uncertain. That edge is why people who want to go to art exhibits or shows, that’s what excites them.
OQ: So why are you leaving us, and what’s next?
TM: I don’t think you should overstay your welcome. A good friend of mine once said, “Never run the risk of being forgotten but not gone.” I seem to have this habit, Boston was 17 years, Cleveland was 17 years, and this is 16. It actually adds up to 50, which I find curious. I’ve changed it a lot here and it’s time for somebody else to take it to the next stage. So that’s the first reason, which is very personal. And the second is, the organization in 2021 and ’22 is celebrating its 75th anniversary. There was some talk that I would see it through the anniversary, but the 75th anniversary ought to be a time to propel forward.
OQ: So what are you going to do?
TM: I don’t know yet. When you change what you’re doing, I look at it as two decisions. It’s a decision to leave and it’s a decision to go someplace. And that’s happened consistently in my career … I’ve found that one you’ve jettisoned what you’re doing, the possibilities explode. And I’ve been very active recently with Interlochen (the famous youth arts education institute in Miichigan) as a board member, and I’m very interested in how artists are trained. So my guess is somehow that’ll be a factor in what I’m doing going forward. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that there might be another festival in the offing. I’m a complete failure at retirement. I keep going back to this learning thing. The greatest thing about doing what I do is I get to work with the most creative people. It’s a very sparky, creative existence. And that’s something I just don’t want to leave. I’d rather have an effect through doing than reflecting.
OQ: You’re all about the experience.
TM: This place is just such a freeform laboratory. It’s a humbling experience having the artistic responsibility for a venerable organization. It’s gone from being sort of fundamentally contemporary classical, and almost European music, to much wider, which to me reflects what’s going on in society and in the world today.1he range of artists who come is just completely broader and different and the possibilities have expanded, radically.
OQ: Thank you for helping to shepherd that.
TM: It’s not been a burden. It’s a personal quest for me too. It’s affected me and taught me. You know, one of the great things about not-for-profit organizations like this one is , that they give you the opportunity to lead and to create and I’ll forever be grateful to the Ojai Music Festival for the belief and support and enthusiasm. And the complete lack of fear.
OQ: We’ll always be grateful to you for being willing to fearlessly undergo that journey in front of us and with us.
TM: It’s very personal to me, and I think that’s what it has to be. I will say that I’m the luckiest person. I’ve had the luckiest career of anyone I can imagine. I’m actually paid to do what I love. What’s better than that? And this year’s going to be about as perfect a capstone as I can imagine. There are going to be moments of awe and moments of laughter and moments of fright. And the level of artists coming, you just can’t get better artists than are here this year anywhere.
The Ojai Music Festival returns for one last go-round with Thomas Morris as Artistic Director this June 6-9. This year’s Music Director is multi-faceted Canadian conductor and soprano, Barbara Hannigan. Tickets and more information about the events can be found at ojaifestival.org.
Meet Our 2018 Interns!
Each year, the Ojai Music Festival Arts Management Internship Program welcomes 12-14 college students and recent graduates to go behind the scenes of a renowned summer music festival. We are very excited to introduce this year’s wonderful interns!
Glenna Adkins:
Glenna Adkins is a cellist and improviser who grew up in Los Angeles. She currently studies music and writing at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. As an instrumentalist, composer, and avid music listener, she is passionate about the performance of new music, as well as the collaborative process between artists. Inspired by the intersection of different art forms, Glenna also composes and performs for works of derived theater and dance, exploring ideas of musical narrative through extended techniques. She has worked at REDCAT and at Reisinger Concert Hall and has recorded as a session musician in several film soundtracks. Additionally, Glenna is interested in issues of sustainability and has served as an Education Intern at the Science Barge in Yonkers, NY, giving school children guided tours of the institution’s hydroponic growing systems.
Peter Appleby:
Peter Appleby is a resident of Santa Paula and has developed a great appreciation for community events and local music festivals. After graduating from Villanova Prep School this spring, Peter will be studying International Relations at California Lutheran University in the fall. An amateur musician himself, Peter has had the privilege of participating in Claire Chase’s performance of PAN in 2017 through the Ojai Music Festival. He is excited to return to Ojai this summer and is eager to help with the festival.
Zoe Appleby:
Zoe Appleby is a Southern California resident who is lucky enough to have been involved in the Ojai Music Festival for three years now. For undergraduate school, Zoe attended Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, CA, where she studied the greatest works of Western thought and literature in a Great Books Program. After spending six weeks in the summer of 2017 in Rome, Italy, studying art history, she decided that the academic field of art history was where she passions lay. Zoe has since been accepted into UC Riverside’s Art History department as an MA student studying medieval art history. After eventually completing her Ph.D. at a different institution, she would be interested in both teaching and researching at the college level and perhaps curating at a museum. She is passionate about bringing the arts to the public, and she has found the Ojai Music Festival to be an amazing event for her to experience the worlds where art and business meet to make something truly beautiful. She recently held a curatorial internship at the Santa Paula Art Museum, an institution which, like the Ojai Music Festival, embodies the spirit of artistic progress and public outreach. Zoe can usually be found swimming at one of the Southern California beaches, or rock-climbing in the cliffs above Ojai.
Maddi Baird:
Maddi Baird is an undergraduate music composition major at San Diego State University. She has had a passion for music and the arts from a young age, and has carried this passion by playing French horn, bass guitar, and by playing in SDSU’s Javanese Gamelan. While studying under Dr. Joseph Waters and Dr. Chris Warren, she has developed a passion for synthesis and analog synthesizers. In the future, she hopes to pursue a graduate degree in film scoring. Within her first semester at SDSU, she has acquired a position at their student union as an Audio-Visual technician and is the recipient of the Frank McCarty Endowed Scholarship in Music Composition. Maddi spends her free time volunteering at Ship in The Woods, a nonprofit art museum. She also has a radio show for KCR College Radio.
Byron Beasley:
Byron Beasley studies music technology at San Diego State University. He has been playing musical instruments since the age of 9 and currently composes music for the Trombone Ensemble at San Diego State. Byron also works as a studio technician at San Diego State, and has experience working with a variety of clients on a daily basis. At the studio, Byron’s job consists of assisting clients with audio and visual productions.
In high school, he worked as a section leader of the brass section, and has performed with a variety of ensembles. Byron also has experience playing in jazz band, marching bands, and wind ensembles (with jazz band being his favorite). He loves to listen to jazz in his free time and enjoys exercising as well. Byron has also composed music for a few video games, and so his diverse experiences in music make him a well-rounded musician, producer, and composer. His greatest aspiration is to work in the music and entertainment industry. Byron loves working behind the scenes to ensure that a product can come to fruition.
Kathryn Carlson:
Kathryn Carlson is a cellist who will soon be receiving her diploma for her Bachelor of Music degree in Instrumental Performance with cello emphasis from the UCSB music department. She is interested in pursuing new music, which she became involved in during her sophomore year of high school after being introduced to it by her music theory teacher Mr. Hertzog (composer for the kung-fu film Bloodsport). She has been a member of the UCSB Ensemble for Contemporary Music (ECM) throughout her time at UCSB and has performed new works in various concerts, including the 2016 UCSB Summer Music Festival, and the Beethoven, New Music, and Cupcake Bar concert hosted by the Now Hear Ensemble. In 2016 she was awarded the ECM Distinguished Performance Award and has recently performed in master classes hosted by The Knights and the Juilliard String Quartet. Having been an intern for the 2017 Ojai Music Festival, she is looking forward to joining the fantastic Ojai Music Festival team once again.
Alberto Cruz:
Alberto Cruz is a composer and recording engineer, currently studying composition at the California Institute of the Arts. During his time there, he has studied with, and continues to work with, Anne LeBaron, Matthias Webber, Karen Tanaka, Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum, John Baffa, and Bob Clendenen. He has fully committed himself to a curriculum at CalArts consisting of composition for film and media, as well as recording and mixing in both live and studio settings. Currently, Alberto works for the School of Film/Video at CalArts running various recording sessions for ADR, spoken word, foley, and music. He also works for the Herb Alpert School of music, recording for live and studio musicians, running a webcast/lighting board for live shows, and acting as a producer/promoter for various shows. When not at CalArts, he works as a studio intern for Matthew Snyder at Allegro Recordings. During his time at CalArts so far, Alberto has produced six shows, played clarinet and other instruments in numerous ensembles, written music for seven films, worked as a sound designer for two films, handled music preparation/orchestration for various established composers around LA, run countless recording sessions for animators, directors, solo musicians, large ensembles, and a large variety of people from other backgrounds, and written over ten performed works for the concert stage. Entering his fourth year of higher education, Alberto’s passion for film music and recording has been fully realized into a reality that he intends to pursue throughout the rest of his life.
Jamie Leidwinger:
Jamie Leidwinger is a Baltimore-based composer. She received her MM in Composition at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins, a BA in Music from Dickinson College, and her teachers include Pulitzer Prize-winner Du Yun, Amy Beth Kirsten, Douglas Buchanan, and David Smooke. Jamie previously interned with the Ojai Music Festival, Q2 Music (NYC, now NewSounds), the Artistic Director of Symphony Space (NYC), and recently produced Q2 Music’s Instagram takeover series, “A Day in the Life,” as a freelance contributor; she is currently an Associate Artist Fellow with Amy Beth Kirsten’s music-theatre ensemble HOWL. Current projects include a podcast featuring interviews with Peter Sellars, Alex Ross, and more (release: Summer 2018), a collaboration with Baltimore-based street choir Voices Rise, co-founding a women’s vocal chamber octet, and co-founding SENSE, a Baltimore-based interdisciplinary, immersive, and inclusive arts series.
Emily Persinko:
Emily Persinko has interned at the Ojai Music Festival for the past two years, working closely with the marketing department and the box office. Emily graduated from San Diego State University (SDSU) this spring where she studied music entrepreneurship and business and is currently pursuing a career in arts administration. Emily is an event stage manager for La Jolla Music Society, a production assistant at San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory, and Assistant Operations Coordinator at Art of Élan. Emily has also recently interned at the San Diego Symphony in the development department and The Broad Stage in Santa Monica as an artistic intern. Emily has held positions as the principle flutist of the SDSU Wind Symphony and Chamber Orchestra. She also teaches at a private flute studio in San Diego and recently performed her senior flute recital.
Molly Tucker:
Molly Tucker, from Thousand Oaks, California, is currently in her third year at Oberlin College and Conservatory where she is pursuing degrees in Violin Performance and Economics. As a violinist, she has participated in such festivals as Bowdoin International Music Festival, Madeline Island Chamber Music Camp, The Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, and the Montecito International Music Festival. Additionally, Molly has been a soloist with the Thousand Oaks Philharmonic and the California State University Northridge Youth Philharmonic. Her musical explorations have taken her to contemporary and Baroque music, as well as folk traditions. She has performed in an Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble performance of Hans Abrahamsen’s Schnee, as well as an Oberlin premiere of Celso-Garrido Lecca’s String Quartet No. 2, and has led and soloed with the Oberlin Baroque Orchestra. Molly has also fiddled since the age of seven and has attended Ashokan Music and Dance Camps and The Festival of American Fiddle Tunes. As a lover of contra dance, she has played dances in both California and New Hampshire, and regularly plays for the monthly dances at Oberlin. Molly is a co-founder of Quartet Davis, a string quartet that plays original arrangements of folk and jazz, which was one of the recipients of Oberlin’s Flint Initiative Grant for a three-week Midwest and East Coast tour in January 2018. She is also a part of Caraway House, a fiddle and voice duo that performs tunes from Scandinavian and Old Time traditions. In January 2017, she traveled to Amman, Jordan with an Oberlin string quartet to play at schools and public venues, including a performance with the Jordan Orchestra sponsored by the United States Embassy. She has studied with Marilyn McDonald, Linda Rose, and Kim Kilgore, and has had the opportunity to work with renowned musicians such as Kikuei Ikeda, the Punch Brothers, Fabian Almazan, The Calder Quartet, Billy Childs, and Christian Howes. Outside of her musical life, she is active in the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association, organizes the Oberlin Quaker Student Group, and works for Oberlin Conservatory Admissions.
Sarah Voshall:
Sarah Voshall is a pianist, collaborator, and teacher based in Los Angeles county. She is currently a third year piano performance major at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA. In high school, she studied improvisation with Daniel Hopkins, who remains a constant source of inspiration. At CalArts, she is privileged to study piano with Ming Tsu, and greatly appreciates the mentorship of Vicki Ray. She has also studied harpsichord with Tisha Mabee. Sarah’s current interests lie in methodically exploring the keyboard works of Bach alongside the surprisingly parallel piano pieces of Bartok. Recently, Sarah has found an interest in learning and performing chamber works with a trio of fellow CalArtians. As a means of cultivating a culture of music (and paying the bills), Sarah has been giving private piano lessons to students of all ages for the past decade. Sarah also teaches piano classes at West Creek Academy to second and third graders, a group of musicians whose youthful enthusiasm continues to delight and exasperate her in equal parts. In her spare time, Sarah enjoys spending time with her little sister who educates her in the memes of the day and forces her to listen to musical theatre soundtracks.
Madeleine Wilmsen:
Madeleine Wilmsen is a flute student at the University of Kansas and received her Bachelor of Arts in Music with a minor in Psychology in May of 2018. While attending undergrad, Madeleine participated in numerous ensembles and chamber groups. Between the years 2015 and 2017, Madeleine was a member of a flute and percussion duo that premiered new works by in-residence composers. She performed as principal player of the KU Symphony Orchestra during the Spring of 2017 and is currently the principal flutist of the KU Wind Ensemble. This spring, KUWE will perform a Reach Out Kansas commissioned piece at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and will be recording a new album. For the last three years, Madeleine has served as President and founding member of the KU Flute Club. She was instrumental in the creation of the club and worked to establish many yearly events, including the annual KU Flute Day in the spring. During the fall of 2017, Madeleine worked as a Development intern at the Kansas City Symphony where she learned the ins and outs of a major non-profit and frequently communicated with symphony donors. She plans on earning a MM in flute performance and furthering her career in music (whether it be performing, teaching, or arts management).
Dominique Wright:
Dominique Wright just finished her sophomore year at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA where she is an Economics Major and Flute Performance Minor. She is interested in continuing her work in social media marketing and is eager to work for larger companies and to gain further experience in management. Dominique has also played the flute for ten years. When she was just beginning her musical studies, she lost her flute at school. When a mother at her school heard about the lost instrument, she went home to find her old flute and brought it back to school so that Dominique could continue playing. Since experiencing that gesture of kindness, Dominique has not wanted to stop playing music. This June will be her second time working with the Ojai Music Festival and she cannot wait to take a part in the festival again.