Credit: Timothy Norris
Ojai, California is nestled in a valley surrounded by the Topatopa Mountains and about a 20-minute drive from coastal Ventura. The town is famous for its rustic chic atmosphere, spiritual energy, Thomas fire that skirted the hamlet and world-class Ojai Music Festival. Since 1947, the event provides cutting-edge repertoire and performances that are largely devoted to modern music and composers of our time.
From its inception, the festival offers a dazzling array of performers, premieres of works by Britten, John Adams, Steven Stucky, Thomas Ades, among others and presents a distinguished selection of Music Directors such as Robert Craft, Ingolf Dahl, Lukas Foss, Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Pierre Boulez, Michael Tilson Thomas, Simon Rattle and Peter Sellers.
This year’s Ojai Music Festival runs from June 7-10 with Patricia Kopatchinskaja, the Moldovan-born super nova Grammy award winning violinist, as Music Director. Her international career soared after studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, simply because she brings electrifying technical and interpretative savvy to the varied repertoire she performs. Her input to this year’s festival insures an intriguing mixture of programming and appearances by some of Europe’s leading new music specialists, of which she enjoys successful collaborations.
Under Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris’ leadership, Ojai Music Festival has established partnerships with Cal Performances of the Ojai at Berkeley series (University of California, Berkeley) and Aldeburgh Festival of Great Britain. Gratis live and archived streaming of festival events allows for online viewing.
Festival performances are hosted throughout the day at venues in town, though most can be heard at Libbey Bowl, an outdoor theater that accommodates 973 and is situated in Libbey Park - within walking distance of delicious eateries and artsy shops. While traditional seating is an option, many concertgoers go green by sprawling on the park’s surrounding lawn to listen and get inspired.
And there is so much to take in this year. The impressive roster of artists will perform works by such composers as John Dowland, Ravel, Radulescu, Berio, Enescu, Cage, Nono, Bartok and Morton Feldman (his Piano and String Quartet). The Ojai festival opens with a series of discussions guided by Ara Guzelimian (Provost and Dean of The Juilliard School), Kopatchinskja and guest artists at Ojai Presbyterian Church and ends with Kopatchinskaja playing Ligeti’s violin concerto at Libbey Bowl.
The four day event will feature pre-concert talks with festival artists and debuts such as the US premiere of Austrian composer George Frederick Haas’ String Quartet No. 9, performed in total darkness by the JACK Quartet. (June 10) Other programming includes Suite from Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat, to mark its centennial and Kurtag’s Kafka Fragments. In this work, Kurtag turns 40 short snippets from Kafka’s writings into a musical dialogue between Kopatchinskaja and soprano Ah Young Hong. (June 9)
The Berlin-based Mahler Chamber Orchestra makes an anticipated festival appearance in celebration of their first extended US residency by collaborating in the US premiere of the musically eclectic Bye Bye Beethoven with Jorge Sanchez-Chiong (electronics) and Kopatchinskja, who created the staging concept. Don’t be surprised if you recognize snippets from Bach, Ives, Cage and even Beethoven’s violin concerto in this work. (June 7)
The JACK Quartet will make their festival debut and also give the premiere of John Luther Adams’ fourth string quartet, Everything That Rises, which was commissioned by the group and SFJAZZ as a testimony to Ojai Valley’s regenerative spirit in the aftermath of the Thomas fire. (June 8) Adams describes this work. “Each musician is a soloist, playing throughout. Time floats and the lines spin out, always rising, in acoustically perfect intervals that grow progressively smaller as they spiral upward…until the music dissolves into the soft noise of the bows, sighing.”
But wait – there will be another world premiere by Michael Hersch, whose violin concerto Kopatchinskaja commissioned and debuted in 2015.
His, I hope we get a chance to visit soon, is set to poetical text for two sopranos (Ah Young Hong and Kiera Duffy), piano (Amy Yang), alto saxophone (Gary Louie) – of which members of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra will also collaborate under conductor Tito Munoz. (June 8) This work was commissioned by Ojai Music Festival, Cal Performances Berkeley, Aldeburgh Festival and PN Review.
One might expect to hear some unique selections from the eastern side of Europe. Kopatchinskaja’s parents engage in Moldavian, Romanian and Hungarian folk music on the cimbalom and violin. Kurtag’s 8 duos for violin and cimbalom, Op. 4 will also be offered as well as Enescu’s third violin sonata ‘dans le caractere populaire roumain.’(June 10)
Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya’s music is perhaps not familiar to American audiences, but some of her works will be prominently displayed.
The Dies Irae for eight double basses, piano and wooden cube, composed between 1972/73, gets a West Coast debut. (June 9) Kopatchinskaja creates the staging concept for this work, which is part of a musical melange about global warming that includes selections by Biber, Crumb and Giacinto Scelsi plus Gregorian chant.
Kopatchinskaja and Markus Hinterhaeuser will give an account of Ustvolskaya’s Sonata for Violin and Piano, Duet Violin and Piano (June 8) and Hinterhaeuser, who is Artistic Director of the Salzburg Festival, will offer Ustvolskaya’s Six Sonatas for Piano Solo.
Ustvolskaya describes her unique approach in a letter written to composer Viktor Suslin in 1988: “Those who are in a position to judge and analyze my compositions from a theoretical point of view must do so in a monologue with themselves. Those who cannot do this must simply listen to my compositions – this is the best way.” Will do.
Other highlights present five free concerts at the Libbey Park Gazebo which include various Sequenza of Berio, and two free children’s concerts at Ojai Art Center that allow youngsters to hear a playground full of composers, perhaps new to their ears in Cage, Honegger, Berio, Holliger and Alan Ridout - with Kopatchinskaja, Anthony Romaniuk (harpsichord) and members of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
Embrace old and new sounds at Ojai Music Festival - one of California’s cultural treasures.