Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Concerts under the Oaks at Ojai

The 60th Ojai Music Festival opens this Thursday, June 8, and runs through Sunday, June 10. As always, the focus is on contemporary (and near-contemporary) music. This year’s festival includes six concerts, a symposium, a tribute film, a music/art installation, plus an assortment of concert previews and a post-concert discussion.

The featured composer this season is Osvaldo Golijov and featured musicians include the Atlanta Symphony with Robert Spano, the Atlanta Chamber Chorus, Dawn Upshaw, Eighth Blackbird, and Trimpin. We have our usual tickets for the series, but the last I checked there were a few individual tickets left for seating or for admission to the grass lawn if you bring a blanket and lawn chairs. The rooms for overnight stays in Ojai itself are probably all booked, but it’s an easy drive from this inland valley to Santa Barbara, Ventura, or Oxnard where a lot of rooms are available. Here’s the schedule:

Thursday, June 8, 8:00 pm --- Cage and Nancarrow. Robert Spano will speak John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing. Trimpin will present Selected Studies for Player Piano by Conlon Nancarrow. You may have read the article in The New Yorker on Trimpin and several of his works; the article relates how Trimpin received Nancarrow’s authorization to convert his player-piano rolls to MIDI files for playing through a computer. Trimpin has also provided a music/art installation, Conloninpurple, at the Ojai Valley Museum. The work of sculpture is a five-octave instrument of 84 sources of acoustic sound, clustered into ten columns. The work is interactive. Trimpin will lead a demonstration of the instrument Saturday afternoon at 3:00 pm.

Friday, June 9, 2:00 pm --- Symposium. Robert Spano, Thomas Morris, and Osvaldo Golijov will lead a symposium starting with a discussion of music festivals (and Ojai) and leading into a discussion of the music of Golijov.

Friday, June 9, 8:00 pm --- Rzewski and Ainadamar. The evening will open with a performance of Rzewski’s Coming Together, being given its West Coast premiere, performed by the group Eighth Blackbird. The Santa Fe revision of Ainadamar will be performed with Dawn Upshaw, Kelley O’Connor, Jessica Rivera, and the Atlanta Symphony led by Spano.

Saturday, June 10, 11:00 am --- Choral Music. The Atlanta Symphony Chamber Chorus, a selected subset of the full chorus will perform an a capella program of 20th century music (Messiaen, Vaughn Williams, Tavener, Durufle, Copland) with a little Tallis thrown in for 16th century spice.

Saturday, June 10, 3:00 pm --- Trimpin. The demonstration of Trimpin’s Conloninpurple at the Ojai Valley Museum.

Saturday, June 10, 4:30 pm --- Tribute. The film Betty Freeman: A Life for the Unknown will be shown at the Ojai Playhouse in honor of this most outstanding of philanthropists of new music.

Saturday, June 10, 8:00 pm --- Spain and Brazil. Luciana Souza and Romero Lubambo will perform Brazilian music for vocalist and guitar. Spano will conduct the Atlanta in De Falla’s Harpsichord Concerto with Peter Marshall as soloist, followed by El Amor Brujo.

Sunday, June 11, 11:00 am --- Upshaw. The great one will sing Berio’s Folk Songs followed by Golijov’s Ayre with Eighth Blackbird.

Sunday, June 11, 5:30 pm --- A Nice Wrap-Up. Spano will conduct the Atlanta in the John Adams Chamber Symphony, in Berio’s Requie, in the Busoni/Adams Berceuse Elgaique, in the Bach/Berio Contrapunctur XIX from Art of the Fugue, and in Golijov’s Oceana cantata with Luciana Souza as vocal solist and the Atlanta Chamber Chorus.

If you’re within driving distance of Ojai, you really should make plans to come for at least a day to this enchanted valley of orchards and arts. Phone for tickets at (805) 646-2094.

posted by Jerry Zinser 6/04/2006