Ojai Music Festival

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The Ojai Music Festival is an annual classical music festival in the United States. Held annually in Ojai, California, the festival presents music, emphasizing both contemporary composers and the discovery or rediscovery of rare or little known works by past masters.

Today in its 61st year, the Festival remains committed to continuing this musical adventure where the world’s most visionary artists define each year’s programming and events. The Festival also offers BRAVO!, its educational programs for students attending Ojai Valley public schools, which enriches the region’s cultural opportunities and promoting classical music to future generations. The Festival takes place in early June. The principal performance venue is the Libbey Bowl, an open-air setting not far from the center of Ojai. During This four day event there are as many as two concerts per day at this location with a Symposium and other free bonus events to enhance the festival experience.

1 Festival 2007
2 History
3 Festival Artists
4 Other People of Note to the Ojai Music Festival
5 External links

[edit] Festival 2007

Libbey Bowl

Thomas W. Morris, is the 2007 artistic director of the Ojai Music Festival and this year’s music director is Pierre Laurent Aimard, the internationally celebrated pianist recently named Instrumentalist-of-the-Year by Musical America. The Festival takes place from June 7 to 10, 2007. The festival as been in existence for sixty one years.

This year’s Festival focuses on Pierre-Laurent Aimard as pianist, collaborator and conductor. The key artistic elements of the Festival build upon Mr. Aimard’s advocacy of the music of Ligeti, Stravinsky, Carter, Bartok and Eötvös; Mr. Aimard’s relationship with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, of which he is one of the artistic partners; and the interaction of pianos and percussion. Mr. Aimard describes the Festival as a mixture of la douce folie and structure: a sense of freedom and fun in performances by supremely skilled musicians in engaging and compelling repertoire in intellectually stimulating combinations. Hungarian composer Peter Eötvös, in residence for the entire Festival, was with Mr. Aimard a member of Ensemble InterContemporain, the Paris-based, contemporary music ensemble founded by Pierre Boulez, a seven-time music director of the Ojai Music Festival. The three Eötvös’ works to be performed during the festival include two American premieres—Sonata per Sei for two pianos, one electric piano, and three percussionists, on June 8, and Chinese Opera performed by The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the resident orchestra of this year’s Festival, on the evening of June 9. The June 9 concert, conducted by Douglas Boyd, who is also an artistic partner of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, also includes a rare performance of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde in an unusual arrangement for 15 players. This concentrated version was originally conceived by Arnold Schoenberg and completed by Rainer Riehn. The singers will be mezzo-soprano Monica Groop and tenor Vinson Cole.

All concerts take place at the Libbey Bowl, an outdoor area surrounded by lush greenery, where Ojai Music Festival-goers have experienced performances by legendary artists of their time since the Festival’s founding in 1947.

[edit] History

Lawrence Morton and Pierre Boulez

The Ojai Music Festival in California’s Ojai Valley, 75 miles northwest of Los Angeles, enjoys a worldwide reputation for providing artists with the freedom to present music they are passionate about in a place so idyllic that filmmaker Frank Capra transformed the area into Shangri-La for his 1937 film Lost Horizon. All concerts take place at the outdoor Libbey Bowl, once marked sacred by the ancient Chumash Indians, where inspiration and creativity still flourish.

Since 1947, the Ojai Music Festival has continued an unbroken tradition of offering a healthy spirit of eclecticism in its adventurous programs, thus gaining a worldwide reputation for attracting artists who are given artistic freedom as they perform exceptional pieces of classical music, from newly commissioned works to interpretations of the standard repertoire.

The Ojai Valley—the backdrop for this music legacy—provides a creative and open environment to both musical luminaries and vibrant emerging artists. The festival has enjoyed collaborations with many highly regarded composers, conductors, and musicians including Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Peter Maxwell Davies, Pierre Boulez, Michael Tilson Thomas, Lukas Foss, John Harbison, John Adams, to name a few.