2022 Ojai Music Festival Program Book

AMOC*MUSIC DIRECTOR

flowers

ivon hitchens

may 19 – july 17

canvas and paper 311 n. montgomery street

thursday – sunday noon – 5pm

canvasandpaper.org

76TH OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL

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Contents Festival Events Thursday, June 9 PAGE

PAGE

34

Ojai Talks

3:00pm

4

36

A Passageway Between Shores

5:00pm

38

Opening Night Concert

8:00pm

6

Friday, June 10 PAGE

42

OJAI Dawns: Lewis + Mitchell

8:00am

46

EASTMAN

11:00am

50

Open Rehearsal

2:30pm

54

the echoing of tenses

5:00pm

58

Harawi

8:00pm

Saturday, June 11 PAGE

62

Free Community Event, cross/collapse

9:00am

64

About Bach

11:00am

68

OJAI Dusk: How to Fall Apart

2:30pm

72

OJAI Dusk: The Cello Player

4:30pm

76

Little Jimmy + Family Dinner

8:00pm

Sunday, June 12 PAGE

80

82 86

87 88

90

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Free Community Event, Julius Eastman

9:00am

The Book of Sounds

10:00am

Free Community Event, Dance in the Park

12:00pm

Open Rehearsal

2:30pm

Free Community Event, Rome is Falling

4:00pm

Festival Finale

5:30pm

OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL

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On the Cover: World Within Message from the Chairman of the Board Board of Directors & Board of Governors List

8

Message from the Artistic & Executive Director

10

Message from the Music Director

14

A Creative Laboratory/Music Director Roster

16

Leading the Festival

22

Staying On It by Thomas May

28

Festival Information

30

Deepen Your Experience

94

Ensemble/Artist Profiles

110

2021-22 Annual Giving Contributors

113

Future Forward Campaign

115

Lifetime Giving

116

Longtime Festival Attendees

119

Matilija Society

120

BRAVO Education & Community Programs

122

Arts Management Internship Program

123

Special Thanks

124

Volunteers

125

Staff & Production

126

Advertiser Index

Cover art: World Within by James Robie

V i s i t o u r n e w t a s t i n g r o o m , o p e n e v e r y d ay.

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AMOC*MUSIC DIRECTOR

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JUN

On the Cover: World Within by James Robie I was both surprised and delighted when I was told my sculpture, World Within was to be this year’s cover art for the music festival’s program.

As an artist I am constantly challenging myself by introducing different materials and elements into my work. World Within is a piece from my GeoNature series I began 4 years ago when I started to introduce sycamore branches and palm fronds that I had collected into my work. These natural elements joined and, in this case, replaced the carved wooden geometry I had been previously creating. It continues to be a part of this wonderful journey of discovery I’ve been on my entire life.

About the Artist Educated as a painter, James Robie did his undergraduate work at the State University of New York at Buffalo and UCLA where he studied with Richard Diebenkorn. Later he did his graduate work at Yale University where he studied with painters Lester Johnson, Al Held, and Jack Tworkov graduating with BFA and MFA degrees in 1970. After graduation, at Gemini GEL he worked on projects with artists Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, and Roy Lichtenstein among others. His paintings and sculpture have been exhibited in New York City at the Graham Gallery and the National Academy and in various galleries in Los Angeles.

In 1978 he founded James Robie Design Associates, a graphic design firm specializing in corporate communications. His design work has appeared in numerous design publications including CA, Print, Abitare, Graphic Design: Los Angeles and Hot California Designers, and Design USA published by Graphis.

In 2011 he was honored with an exhibition, a 40-year survey of both his design and fine art that was held at the California State University Northridge Art Gallery. Robie is a member of the Ojai Studio Artists and lives and works in Ojai.

a moment of silence

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A Message from the Chairman of the Board We are thrilled to be here together with all of you to celebrate the Festival’s 75th anniversary. Thank you for your curiosity, for your support and for inspiring all that this treasured festival represents.

Each of you gathered here, and all those who have engaged with the Festival through these 75 years, is collectively responsible for the impact and legacy of this remarkable musical event. Our Ojai Music Festival has an international reputation for attracting the most creative and talented artists from across the globe. Our entire Festival family as well as our beloved community of Ojai can take great pride in this magical gathering.

This year’s Music Director, the incredible AMOC* collective brings together some of today’s brightest, most thoughtful artists across disciplines. Ara Guzelimian’s invitation was a brilliant one as we look to the next 75 years and build upon the Festival’s legacy of innovation and adventure. We are truly fortunate to have Ara’s artistic eloquence and leadership.

The Festival’s reach keeps expanding with audiences around the world able to join our enhanced livestreams and year-round virtual Ojai Talks. Our work in the Ojai Valley deepens with the continuing growth of our BRAVO! music education program, providing the only K-3 music programs in area schools as well as reaching community audiences young and old.

I am grateful to our growing Board of engaged, energetic, and generous individuals for their leadership. We have worked hard to balance our great artistic ambitions with careful financial management. You play a vital part in that effort, as we are dependent on contributed income to provide 75% of our total budget.

We invite you to join us as we work to secure the Festival’s future. As we launch Future Forward, our first public campaign in Ojai’s 75-year history, we ask you to consider how you might support our commitment to ensure that the Ojai Music Festival can continue to serve and connect this most remarkable audience and family of artists. The longterm financial health and artistic success of the Festival depends on the support of our entire community for its artistic initiatives. As we mark this moment and look toward our future, we believe the Ojai Music Festival can continue to thrive as a vital laboratory of classical music.

On behalf of the Board of Directors, thank you to everyone who makes this year’s Festival possible. We appreciate the support of our donors, subscribers, and volunteers.

And we are always thankful for the welcoming warmth and generosity of spirit of the Ojai community.

JERRY EBERHARDT

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS

BOARD OF GOVERNORS

JERRY EBERHARDT Chair of the Board

BARNEY AND KATE BARNHART JILL AND BILL SHANBROM Co-Chairs

BARRY SANDERS Vice Chair Governance MICHELE BRUSTIN Vice Chair Development CATHRYN KRAUSE Secretary STEPHAN FARBER Treasurer MARGARET BATES JAMIE BENNETT BRIDGET TSAO BROCKMAN NANCYBELL COE MICHELE EDELMAN RUTH ELIEL FRED FISHER GREG GRINNELL GLENN MERCER DON PATTISON NEIL SELMAN MAURICE SINGER HOPE TSCHOPIK SCHNEIDER MERRILL WILLIAMS CHEREE EDWARDS OFWC President

ARA GUZELIMIAN Artistic and Executive Director

Directors Emeritus RICK GOULD, MD JOAN KEMPER STEPHEN J.M. MORRIS

ANN BARRETT BARBARA BARRY MARJORIE BEALE AND WILLIAM MEYERHOFF SUE BIENKOWSKI AND WANG LEE JUDY AND MERRILL BLAU EVELYN AND STEPHEN BLOCK BRET BRADIGAN LILY AND THOMAS BROD PAMELA BURTON AND RICHARD HERTZ HYON CHOUGH JILL COHEN AND NORMAN SIDEROW BARBARA DELAUNE WARREN PENNY DONNELLY KATHY AND JIM DRUMMY MARY AND WILLIAM DUXLER CONSTANCE EATON AND WILLIAM HART LISA FIELD LENNIE AND BERNIE GREENBERG LINDA JOYCE HODGE SCOTT JOHNSON SUZY AND MOE KRABBE LESLIE LASSITER CAROL AND LUTHER LUEDTKE RAULEE MARCUS SHARON MCNALLEY PAMELA MELONE CLAIRE AND DAVID OXTOBY LINDA AND RON PHILLIPS CATHERINE AND BARRY SCHIFRIN ABBY SHER SHELLEY AND GREG SMITH ANNE-MARIE SPATARU JANE TAYLOR AND FREDERIC OHRINGER ESTHER WACHTELL GARY WASSERMAN AND CHARLES KASHNER JANE AND RICHARD WEIRICK SUSANNE AND BLAKE WILSON

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Individual Instruuion Group Lessons & Ensembles Music History Courses*

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A Message from the Artistic & Executive Director Dear Ojai Festival friends,

Photo by Square Productions

A very warm welcome to you! We gather once again in our annual “rite of June” for artistic adventure and the pleasure of each other’s company. If anything, the painful challenges of the last two years have taught us to cherish more than ever the deeply human experience of gathering together.

We do so in the company of AMOC*, the boundlessly creative, discipline-crossing collective of 17 extraordinary artists.

It might be tempting to say that these are the “artists of the future,” but I think their impact is much more immediate and compelling than that – these are the artists of the present! They are a new generation of artists who are not held back by conventional boundaries of discipline or genre. The musicians may dance, and the dancers may sing. Their creativity often thrives at the intersections, where old meets new, where a present-day issue is addressed by the timeless, and where collaboration is at the core.

It has been such a joy to work with AMOC* and their guest artists for the Festival, including the shape-shifting periodinstrument band Ruckus – and where else can you get a festival with Ruckus going AMOC*! Paradoxically, AMOC*s programs reflect the collective while remaining deeply individual and personal. That, in itself, signals a very different way of working.

You will not be surprised to learn that it literally takes a village to put together a Festival such as this. We are so grateful to the efforts of a remarkably dedicated Board, to our generous donors, subscribers, and ticket-buyers, to our tireless volunteers and endlessly hard-working production team, interns, and staff. We also have the good fortune of being in this enchanted community of Ojai and collaborating throughout the year with such wonderful partners as the Ojai Unified School District, the Ojai Valley School, the Ojai Valley Museum, and the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy, among many others. Our thriving BRAVO music education program has been providing the early foundation for most of the community’s school children for 30 years and reaches more than 3,500 students a year throughout Ojai and part of Ventura County.

What was once an implausible dream in 1947 has become a vibrant reality now for three-quarters of a century. We are delighted that you are a part of our family and thank you for all that you contribute to this treasured Festival experience. This year marks the beginnings of Future Forward, our 75th Anniversary campaign to assure that our future is built on the strongest foundation. You’ll be hearing more about this from us over the coming year, and we invite you to consider supporting us in this first-ever endeavor. It is all of us together that define the Ojai Music Festival.

Let us savor this gathering together this weekend. How wonderful to be with you!

ARA GUZELIMIAN

The position of Ara Guzelimian as Artistic & Executive Director is made possible by the generous support of Jill and Bill Shanbrom and the Shanbrom Family Foundation.

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RHIANNON GIDDENS | MUSIC DIRECTOR

JUNE 8-11 2023 featuring

Attacca Quartet Kayhan Kalhor Francesco Turrisi Wu Man

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A Message from the Music Director We are thrilled that you have chosen to spend a few days with AMOC* in the bucolic Ojai Valley and share a slice of our vision of what an opera company can be. We usually gather as a company every summer at our spiritual home on a mountaintop in Vermont to retreat and make new work together. In many ways, we are bringing that ethos to Ojai this weekend.

The Ojai Music Festival has been an artistic oasis for many decades, a place where audiences and artists alike go to be refreshed by the Festival’s atmosphere of openness, experimentation, and adventure.

AMOC* is thrilled and honored both to uphold Ojai’s essential spirit and to expand the Festival’s scope this year with offerings that span many performative languages, centuries, and artistic voices.

For 400 years, opera has brought different artistic disciplines together into a single piece of work. Why are we called an opera company?

For us, opera is a template for collaboration; we’re interested in the ways these art forms come together. United by a core set of values and collaborating at every stage — from proposal to performance — we make a wide breadth of ambitious work possible and create new pathways that connect artists and audiences in surprising and visceral ways.

“It takes a village” only begins to describe the incredible effort that dozens of people have put into making our dream of a festival into a reality. From the countless hours of conversation among our 17 core artists in crafting a program that reflects the many facets of our company, to months of workshopping and rehearsal with nearly 20 of our dearest collaborators, to the heroic dotting of i’s and crossing of t’s by the production teams of both OMF and AMOC*, the process of arriving here has been truly a collective labor of care.

This effort over the past year has been particularly meaningful as we climb out of the global pandemic and meet each other in a moment where, we believe, it’s more important now than ever to find intimacy again and gather together through rituals of performance. This Festival, with its numerous world premieres (including six new theatrical productions), is a loving portrait of this moment in time: a reflection of the many individual worldviews of our artists and the product of our protean nature as a company. In this coming together, it is hard to imagine a better representation of that which is “operatic”: dancers, instrumentalists, vocalists, poets, designers, writers, composers, and directors collaborating to tell stories. This place, the Ojai Music Festival, has always been about such a collision and exchange between its participating artists and, importantly, you. Our journey on this road together is nascent, and we could not be more grateful to have you join at this transformational moment.

ZACK WINOKUR Co-Founder and Artistic Director, AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company)

The residency of AMOC* as Music Director is made possible by the generous support of the Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund.

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Ojai Music Festival: A Creative Laboratory For seven decades, the Ojai Music Festival has been a laboratory for the special chemistry that results from combining insatiable curiosity with unbounded creativity.

The formula is simple: Each year a Music Director is given the freedom and resources to imagine four days of musical brainstorming. Some have approached their task with caution, fearing that Ojai might be like other places. But, of course, it’s not.

More often this unique blend of enchanted setting and an audience voracious in its appetite for challenge and discovery has inspired a distinguished series of conductors, performers, and composers to push at boundaries and stretch limits.

At its inception in 1947, under the guidance of Festival founder John Bauer and conductor Thor Johnson, the Festival featured a balance of classics and more contemporary fare. By the time Lawrence Morton took over as Artistic Director in 1954 the emphasis had shifted to new music and Ojai soon became the showcase as well as a home-away-from-home for such 20th-century giants as Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, Lou Harrison, and Olivier Messiaen, not to mention two Southern California “locals” — Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky. It was Morton who established the tradition of rotating Music Directors and with this innovation each year’s Festival became the reflection of a succession of larger-than-life personalities, including Robert Craft (joined in 1955 and 1956 by Stravinsky), Copland, Ingolf Dahl, Lukas Foss, Boulez, and Peter Maxwell-Davies, as well as such rising stars as Michael Tilson Thomas, Calvin Simmons, Kent Nagano, John Adams, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Vijay Iyer, and Patricia Kopatchinskaja.

Through the years Ojai’s Music Directors have invited distinguished soloists, firstrate chamber ensembles, and world-class orchestras to join them in exploring the intersection between new music and everything from jazz and improvisation to electronics and computers; dance, theater, and experimental staging to social and political issues, not to mention repertory that might go back to the Middle Ages or reach across the globe.

Looking back, it would be difficult to identify any overarching aesthetic premise, though from year to year there has been no shortage of agendas. Rather, the thread running through these past decades has been this Festival’s consistency in promoting creativity and innovation. Here in Ojai hallowed masterpieces and inyourface experiments can be uneasy bedfellows sharing a berth that is a pedestal of repose for one, a trampoline for the other. And that rumble you hear? It is the steady grumbling from an audience whose outspoken views on any and every subject are the entitlement of its loyalty. Its passion is the true barometer of the health of this Festival. No smugness here; no indifference, either. This is a place for enthusiasms, often excessive, and opinions, sometimes vociferous, and a hunger for shared discovery that reaffirms, year after year, why music matters in the first place.

—CHRISTOPHER HAILEY

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OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL MUSIC DIRECTORS 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968

1969

1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984

THOR JOHNSON THOR JOHNSON EDWARD REBNER THOR JOHNSON THOR JOHNSON WILLIAM STEINBERG THOR JOHNSON THOR JOHNSON ROBERT CRAFT ROBERT CRAFT IGOR STRAVINSKY ROBERT CRAFT IGOR STRAVINSKY AARON COPLAND, INGOLF DAHL AARON COPLAND ROBERT CRAFT HENRI TEMIANKA LUKAS FOSS LUKAS FOSS LUKAS FOSS INGOLF DAHL INGOLF DAHL INGOLF DAHL PIERRE BOULEZ ROBERT LAMARCHINA LAWRENCE FOSTER MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS MICHAEL ZEAROTT STEFAN MINDE MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS PIERRE BOULEZ GERHARD SAMUEL MICHAEL ZEAROTT MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS AARON COPLAND MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS CALVIN SIMMONS LUKAS FOSS LUKAS FOSS DANIEL LEWIS ROBERT CRAFT DANIEL LEWIS PIERRE BOULEZ

1985 1986 1987 1988

1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

KENT NAGANO KENT NAGANO STEPHEN MOSKO LUKAS FOSS NICHOLAS MCGEGAN SIR PETER MAXWELL DAVIES DIANE WITTRY PIERRE BOULEZ STEPHEN MOSKO JOHN HARBISON SIR PETER MAXWELL DAVIES PIERRE BOULEZ JOHN ADAMS MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS KENT NAGANO PIERRE BOULEZ EMANUEL AX, DANIEL HARDING MITSUKO UCHIDA DAVID ZINMAN ESA-PEKKA SALONEN SIR SIMON RATTLE ESA-PEKKA SALONEN EMERSON STRING QUARTET PIERRE BOULEZ KENT NAGANO OLIVER KNUSSEN ROBERT SPANO PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD DAVID ROBERTSON EIGHTH BLACKBIRD GEORGE BENJAMIN DAWN UPSHAW LEIF OVE ANDSNES MARK MORRIS JEREMY DENK STEVEN SCHICK PETER SELLARS VIJAY IYER PATRICIA KOPATCHINSKAJA BARBARA HANNIGAN MATTHIAS PINTSCHER JOHN ADAMS AMOC*

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Leading the Festival There have been a remarkably small number of visionary leaders over the 75 years of the Ojai Music Festival. It began in 1947 with an Ojai transplant with a big dream, John Bauer, who wanted to recreate his experience at the great European music festivals and even create an ambitious campus with studios, housing, an amphitheater, and a festival theater.

The remarkable musical catalyst Lawrence Morton became involved even in Bauer’s time, as you see from his prescient article written in 1949.

Lawrence took over as Artistic Director and began a long, extraordinarily fruitful association that only ended with his passing in 1987. That first 1954 Festival already bore the hallmarks of adventure and innovation that would come to define the Festival – the guest artists included composers Lukas Foss and Ingolf Dahl, with Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland to follow shortly in the next few years. Morton was a musical thinker of enormous breadth, discernment, and ambition, all found within his extremely modest Minnesotan persona. His championing of numerous composers generally placed him far ahead of his time, beginning with his close association with Pierre Boulez already in 1957 (at Monday Evening Concerts, Morton’s regular winter series in Los Angeles). Boulez would go on to become the most frequent Music Director of the Ojai Music Festival, serving in that role 7 times between 1967 and 2003. Morton was a deep influential friend and advocate for a number of our emerging musicians as well over the years, most notably with Michael Tilson Thomas whose association with the Festival began before he turned 20 and continued for over 30 years.

With brief but valuable tenures by Jeanette O’Connor and Christopher Hunt, the more recent history has been shaped by two formidable artistic leaders. Ernest Fleischmann took over in 1998 after a remarkable tenure at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He, in turn, was succeeded by Tom Morris, whose 17-year history as Artistic Director was marked by endless creativity, reinvention and a fresh new generation of Music Directors, including Jeremy Denk, Vijay Iyer, Dawn Upshaw, Peter Sellars, Patricia Kopatchinskaya, and Barbara Hannigan.

I am deeply grateful to count Lawrence Morton, Ernest Fleischmann, and Tom Morris among my most valued friends and musical guides.

And deeply honored to share with them the glorious history of this treasured Festival.

—ARA GUZELIMIAN

L-R: Tom Morris, Pierre Boulez, Ernest Fleischmann and Ara Guzelimian at the 2003 Ojai Festival

Pierre Boulez and Lawrence Morton at the 1984 Ojai Festival

Lawrence Morton with Michael Tilson Thomas

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Staying On It

“Speak boldly!” The soul-stirring exhortation from the saints to Joan d’Arc that launches the opening night concert might serve as the overall motto for the 2022 Ojai Music Festival. As conveyed by bass-baritone Davóne Tines, Julius Eastman’s musical imagining of this transcendent encounter is of an operatic intensity — a summons to explore the audaciously interdisciplinary and expanded vision that the artists of AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company) and their colleagues are bringing to Ojai for this 76th edition of the Festival.

There is no conventional opera on the program, though the archetypal love-death journey of Tristan and Isolde merges with borrowings from ancient Andean culture in Olivier Messiaen’s song cycle Harawi, which is being presented in a new semi-staging directed by AMOC* co-founder Zack Winokur. Instead, the events designed to unfold over the Festival’s four-day span could be parts of a grand, openended mega-opera that freely juxtaposes media, genres, and performance practices. In Harawi, for example, the musical performances by soprano Julia Bullock and pianist Conor Hanick are amplified by the choreography of Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber.

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Tearing away the divisions that would relegate music theater, dance, instrumental music, art song, and poetry to separate realms, AMOC* is a collective of 17 artists who recombine and realign their fields of expertise to create revelatory new hybrids. Together with their like-minded associates from the early music ensemble Ruckus and various guest artists, AMOC*’s ways of “speaking boldly” during this long Festival weekend will traverse a spectrum from the solo singing voice and instrumental soliloquy through the spoken word to dancing bodies in motion, culminating in the realization of another rousing piece

by Eastman, Stay On It: the raucously anthemic ode to determination that he wrote in an earlier era plagued by anxiety and violence.

The impetus for such boldness comes — as it often does in moments of radical reconsideration of what we want music to do, of how it can map a way into the future — from looking back, like Orpheus, to a utopian ideal that forever vanishes beyond the horizon. In his recently published book The Impossible Art: Adventures in Opera, AMOC* co-founder Matthew Aucoin argues that “this maddening, outlandish, impossible art form” called opera emerges from the unfulfillable quest for “an imagined union of all

the human senses and all art forms.” Himself the composer of a uniquely compelling operatic version of the Orpheus myth, which he based on Sarah Ruhl’s perspective-shifting play Eurydice, Aucoin and his AMOC* colleagues are contributing an unprecedented chapter to the Festival: This is the first time in Ojai’s history that a multidisciplinary collective has acted as music director.

But rather than an updated Gesamtkunstwerk meant to overwhelm audiences with its demand for total submission to a single artist’s worldview, AMOC*’s amalgams are riotously adventurous and gloriously unpredictable — an alluring polyphony of voices and bodies, of styles and ideas, that is more akin to a feast or even a family dinner.

Aucoin shines a light on the extraordinary assortment and intersections of the company members’ talents in the large-scale new work he has titled exactly that. He describes Family Dinner as a “polyvocal” celebration that interweaves concerto-like cameos and “confessions” with spoken toasts commissioned from an array of contemporary writers. Dance-like movements figure prominently. “Dance is central to AMOC*,” Aucoin remarks.

“No matter how complicated things get, no matter how intense our discussions are, we always like to burn off the mist with dance.”

Along with the family dinner metaphor for making the work of art (with its multiple chefs), another of the Festival’s most-anticipated world premieres, choreographer Bobbi Jene Smith’s Open Rehearsal, frames the synergies of dance and music in live performance with a meta-theatrical concept that opens up a hall of mirrors of unresolvable speculations, in keeping with our apprehensive, returningfrom-COVID era. This pivotal world premiere additionally considers the multiplicity of performative identities that are a signature of AMOC*’s artists.

An exuberant variety is on offer at this 76th Festival — from the “distant, unknown music” that characterizes the sound worlds of Messiaen and Michael Hersch alike to the contemporary accents Emi Ferguson and Ruckus bring to J.S. Bach. AMOC*’s creative ecosystem encourages such proliferation, as Zack Winokur explains: “This is not my company. This is our company, serving each core member. And that means not just spotlighting our members but also shape-shifting to support whatever their ideas are. So the guests come out of the particular projects and collaborations that they find interesting.” Inherently collaborative to begin with, AMOC* encourages its members to collaborate with their respective colleagues as well.

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STAYING ON IT

That doesn’t mean the 2022 Ojai Music Festival is a random smorgasbord. Although the opening and closing concerts present a menu of disparate selections, they include intersecting motifs that are threaded and echoed throughout the weekend, receiving in-depth consideration in particular performances. Take the practice of improvisation and its countless gradations, along with a corresponding philosophy of once-only realization of a work of art. We encounter the fascinating varieties of its manifestation in the oeuvre of Julius Eastman — himself a major thread uniting the program — and then in the work of George Lewis and an in-progress collaboration with Roscoe Mitchell.

This in turn is part of a larger theme of AMOC*’s Festival: the unique elusiveness of composers like Eastman whose music, as Winokur puts it, “demands to be played and performed differently every time, and sometimes in radically different ways.” All of Eastman, along with Hans Otte’s Book of Sounds, given a rare performance in toto by Conor Hanick, possesses an aura (in the Walter Benjamin sense) that could never be diminished — or faked — by technology.

Carolyn Chen’s How to Fall Apart, among AMOC*’s new commissions, reflects on the stories we tell about coming undone, from the cosmological to the everyday, and brings fresh perspective to the interchange between music and dance that is so central to the 2022 Festival program. The process of disintegration on a vast social scale is explored

by AMOC* and Ruckus in Doug Balliett’s new opera Rome Is Falling. On the other hand, Anthony Cheung’s newly minted song cycle the echoing of tenses, focuses on the power but also ambiguity of individual memory to preserve identities.

Chen represents a subtheme of Los Angeles–based composers, another of whom is Andrew McIntosh — “one of the best-kept secrets of our music world,” in Aucoin’s estimation. His Little Jimmy is a kind of “desert music” and preserves field recordings of natural sounds that have been burned out of existence by the recent wildfires.

Another defining element of the AMOC* aesthetic is what flutist Emi Ferguson calls “the synergy between early music and experimental music.” This informs her collaboration with Ruckus and was also the starting point for their cocommissioning of Roscoe Mitchell. An affinity between early and new music even determines the structure of the closing concert, which presents an opportunity to hear countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo performing Vivaldi and Philip Glass side-by-side. Aspects of Minimalism are likewise woven through the program. The overlooked contributions of Julius Eastman and Hans Otte share space not only with Glass but with the myriad appearances of this stylistic vocabulary among a new generation of postPostminimalist composers.

What could be a fitter rounding off of Ojai Music Festival’s 75th-anniversary year than this focus on the boldness of the new generation — particularly on the innovative processes of collaboration these artists are using to shape the art that will define a new century? “The members of AMOC*, as a collective, have a very different way of working and are ahead of their time,” says the Festival’s Artistic and Executive Director Ara Guzelimian. “They’ve taken their concept of multidisciplinary work further than many other groups. When you have all of these incredibly vibrant artistic atoms colliding with each other, what results is often the very surprising and very unexpected.”

—THOMAS MAY

Special thanks to the Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne for their underwriting support to celebrate the Ojai Music Festival’s 75th anniversary season.

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J U N E 13 - A U G 6 SANTA BARBAR A , CA Music Academy artist Congratulations! toCONOR HANICK & AMOC

M U S I C AC A D E M Y. O R G Ojai full page 2022.indd 4

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AFTER 130 YEARS•••

OVNews DOWNLOAD THE APP 76TH OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL

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Festival Information COVID-SAFETY PROTOCOL Your health and safety, that of our entire Festival family and our beloved Ojai community, is of paramount importance to us.

Key health and safety measures for the 2022 Ojai Music Festival: • Vaccination. Proof of vaccination is required for admission to all events, except community outdoor venues in Libbey Park (Dance in the Park and Rome is Falling). At all points of access to Festival concerts and events, you will be asked to show either your physical vaccination card, a photo of your card, or a QR code vaccination record from ca.gov. You will receive a Festival wristband to use during the weekends.

• Masks. For Libbey Bowl concerts Masks are recommended but not required. All indoor venues: Masks are required. Community outdoor venues in Libbey Park: Masks are not required.

If you are not feeling well, please do not attend a concert.

In addition, we will have hand sanitation supplies available throughout the Festival campus. Frequently scheduled surfacecleaning of spaces, including seating areas and restrooms, will occur during the Festival.

The Festival team developed these measures based on recommendation of local public health advisors and consulting area physicians. Your patience, support, and participation in our efforts to help minimize the risk of exposure and the spread of COVID-19 are deeply appreciated.

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LATE SEATING Performances start at the time designated on your ticket. In deference to the comfort and listening pleasure of the audience, late-arriving patrons will not be seated while music is being performed.

Latecomers are asked to wait quietly in the designated areas until the first break in the program, when ushers will assist them to their seats. Late-seating breaks and arrangements vary by concert and are at the discretion of the House Manager in consultation with the conductor and performing artists. Please note that performances without breaks may not have late seating.

Chimes will ring 10 minutes before the start of each concert and five minutes before the end of intermission.

Please note: Artists and programs are subject to change without notice. In the event of a weather emergency, concerts may be canceled without ticket refunds.

BOX OFFICE HOURS The Festival Box Office is located in the center of Libbey Park. Our friendly staff and interns will be glad to help you with ticket purchases and questions, as well as ordering your 2023 Festival series passes. Assisted listening devices are available for checkout at the Box Office.

Please bring a valid photo ID. If you are unable to use your tickets, you can make a tax-deductible contribution by returning them to the Box Office at least 48 hours in advance of the concert.

HOURS OF OPERATION: Thurs., June 9 12pm – 9pm Fri., June 10 9am-1pm / 2pm-9pm Sat., June 11 9am-1pm / 2pm-9pm Sun., June 12 9am-1pm / 4pm-7:30pm

PHOTOS AND RECORDINGS Photography, audio recording, and videography are prohibited during Festival performances. We appreciate your cooperation in helping us create an environment for the artists that is not distracting.

PHONES AND ELECTRONIC DEVICES As a courtesy to others, before the start of Festival performances please turn off your phone, car alarm, and any other electronic device that makes noise or emits light. Efforts to control paper rustling will be appreciated by both audience members and artists.

ALCOHOL POLICY Due to City of Ojai regulations, we ask that our patrons not bring alcohol to Libbey Park or Libbey Bowl.

Alcohol that is purchased in Libbey Park must be consumed in our outdoor Park Green Room only.

SMOKING POLICY Both Libbey Park and Libbey Bowl are designated no-smoking zones by the City of Ojai. The Festival’s office and donor lounge are also nonsmoking areas.

LAWN SEATING As a courtesy to other lawn patrons, blankets and lowrise chairs are preferred. Please bring low-rise, beachstyle chairs with legs of 10 inches or less. Patrons with higher-rise chairs, such as camping or deck chairs, will be asked to move to the house right side of the lawn.

Please do not leave valuable items in the lawn area. The Festival is not responsible for lost or damaged items.

LOST AND FOUND If you lose or find an item, please check in with the Festival Box Office, just outside the entrance to Libbey Bowl.

PATRONS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS Seating for patrons with wheelchairs is available in a reserved section of Libbey Bowl. Please contact the Box Office as early as possible for special seating requests. A handicapped parking lot is located on Signal Street for vehicles displaying a DMV handicapped parking hang tag or license plate.

Early arrival is encouraged, as these spaces fill up.

For patrons requiring a short walk into Libbey Bowl, a handicapped drop-off point is located near the backstage on Signal Street. Please notify the barricade attendant and they will direct you. There is also nearby parking for the drivers of those needing assistance.

For listening devices, please visit the Box Office. Public restrooms at the east end of Libbey Park are wheelchair accessible. Please contact an usher if you need assistance.

IN THE EVENT OF AN EMERGENCY Emergency exits are clearly marked. In the event of an emergency, ushers and Festival staff will provide instructions. Contact an usher or member of the Festival staff if you require medical assistance.

SERVICE ANIMALS Animals or pets of any kind, with the exception of service animals, are prohibited in Libbey Bowl during concerts. Patrons with disabilities are welcome to bring service animals. Service animals are defined under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. Service animals must remain on a leash or in a harness at all times and rest in the seating area of the individual with a disability, excluding aisles or walkways. Please note that an animal whose sole function is to provide comfort or emotional support does not qualify as a service animal under ADA regulations. A service animal can be removed if it behaves in an unacceptable way during a performance, and the person with the disability does not or cannot control the animal.

AFTER THE PERFORMANCE We appreciate your cooperation in helping to clear the seating area after concerts. Please be sure to take all personal items and dispose of trash as you leave the Bowl.

GO GREEN The Festival strives to minimize its ecological footprint.

We encourage you to do your share by separating your trash and using our recycle boxes provided by E.J. Harrison & Sons, and by using our complimentary water refill stations located throughout the Park and inside the Bowl. The same program book can be reused throughout the Festival.

ATMs There are a few banks within walking distance of Libbey Bowl: Pacific Western Bank (110 S. Ventura Street), Bank of America (205 W. Ojai Avenue) and Wells Fargo Bank (202 E. Matilija Street).

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Deepen Your Experience GREEN ROOM IN THE PARK An important part of the Festival is enjoying the wonderful setting of Libbey Park.

Visit our special surroundings in the center of the park. Enjoy drinks from the Ojai Beverage Company and small bites from the Ojai Valley Deli, Ojai Rotie, and The Vine, plus Sanders & Sons Gelato.

Learn more about the Festival, Ojai Festival Women’s Committtee, and our BRAVO education program, plus some of our Ojai partners doing great work in our community including the Ojai Studio Artists and Ojai Museum.

FESTIVAL POP-UP BOUTIQUE Take home something to help remember your Festival experience! Visit our pop-up boutique featuring 2022 Festival T-shirts, as well as essentials including baseball caps, seat cushions, blankets, CDs, and more swag!

SUPPERS IN THE PARK One of our favorite traditions with Festival friends under the oak trees in Libbey Park! Enjoy a gourmet boxed dinner with wine provided by The Ojai Vineyard.

Friday, September 17 with Catering Connection and Saturday, September 18 with Ojai Rôtie. Limited seating. Advance reservations only.

Special thanks to Carolyn and Jamie Bennett for their generous support of Suppers in the Park.

OJAI BEYOND The Festival’s live online community continues to grow through our live stream broadcast. Since its inception in 2012, we have expanded Ojai’s global footprint, building vastly larger audiences and deepening relationships with patrons throughout the year. Please enjoy your favorite Festival concerts from this year and years past at OjaiFestival.org free of charge.

STAY CONNECTED Keep in touch with the latest news and updates both during and after the Festival.

LIKE US ON FACEBOOK

Facebook.com/OjaiFestival FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

@ojaifestivals | #ojai2022 VIEW AND SUBMIT FESTIVAL PHOTOS

ojaifestivals/#ojai2022 #runningamocinojai Visit our mobile-friendly website on your device for the latest updates at OjaiFestival.org

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Scan the QR code below to download our free OMF mobile app to view concert info, Festival venues, programs notes, health and safety updates, Explore Ojai, and digital content.

Save the Date!

The Holiday Home Tour and Marketplace is back!

November 12 & 13 2022 Hosted by the Ojai Festival Women’s Committee with proceeds benefiting the Ojai Festival and its BRAVO music education and community program.

TOUR distinctive homes adorned with festive holiday inspirations SHOP at the Holiday Marketplace featuring more than 45 vendors Tickets on sale in Fall 2022. Get more information at OjaiFestival.org

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2022-2023

Introducing a Bold New Season of Live Events Subscribe and Save up to 25% View the full lineup online starting June 10 Emanuel Ax – Leonidas Kavakos – Yo-Yo Ma Fri, Jan 27 / Granada Theatre photo: Nigel Parry

(805) 893-3535 www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu

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Thursday, June 9, 2022 | 3:00pm Ojai Presbyterian Church

Ojai Talks PART I

About AMOC* Ara Guzelimian and AMOC* co-founders Matthew Aucoin and Zack Winokur BREAK

PART II

2022 Composers WNYC/New Sounds Host John Schaefer and 2022 Festival composers in residence

Ojai Talks is made possible by the generous support of Kathy and Jim Drummy

OJAI PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 304 FOOTHILL ROAD

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Ojai, Then and Now In exploring through the rich archives of the Ojai Music Festival, I recently came upon a remarkably pertinent and prescient essay by Lawrence Morton, written in 1949 — long before he took over the Festival in 1954. He was writing as an astute musical observer for a long-forgotten publication called Opera and Concert magazine. His observations remarkably document that the artistic values of the Ojai Festival were there from the very beginning, as you can read in some excerpts.

Lawrence was to become Stravinsky’s great champion during the composer’s many years living in Los Angeles, producing regular performances of his music at both Ojai and Monday Evening Concerts and presenting multiple premieres of the smaller scale works in the 1950. He himself is the dedicatee of Stravinsky’s Eight Instrumental Miniatures, which he wittily called “my passport to immortality.” Lawrence programmed an adventurous range of music new and old, from Gesualdo to Webern, which was to influence a flowering of different styles in Stravinsky’s music of those years.

That, in turn, set the template for the centrality of composers and new work at the Ojai Festival, a legacy that included visits from Ingolf Dahl, Pierre Boulez, Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, and Elliott Carter in his own time to such figures as Olivier Messiaen, György Kurtág, Frederic Rzewski, George Crumb, George Lewis, Kaija Saariaho, and Vijay Iyer in more recent days.

Lawrence anticipated that even in his 1949 article with a passage about a then still-controversial work: Ojai has remembered that good things come in small packages. The direction

of its effort was plainly indicated during the 1948 season, when it presented as its stage attraction Stravinsky Story of a Soldier. This is an epochal work, although its requirements are modest . . . Yet these tiny forces move one to ponder no less basic and profound than the struggle between good and evil; they bring to one’s ears music of the most extraordinary freshness and variety; and they present to the eye dramatic action of unusual power, charm and humor . . . It is not part of Ojai’s plan to storm Parnassus thus by the weight of its numbers, but rather by the integrity of its performances . . . Audiences although they were divided in their reaction to problematic works like the Stravinsky, still agreed that the festival was stimulating Leaping forward more than 70 years to our current Festival, I note that we present multi-disciplinary works of dramatic that appeal to both the eye and ear, written and imagined by a new generation of exceptionally adventurous artists. Lawrence Morton must be smiling.

—ARA GUZELIMIAN

Excerpts from Opera and Concert magazine, 1949

by Lawrence Morton The geography, the setting, and the climate of the place generate its special feeling. Ojai has a tone, a timbre, a quality of its own. For years artists, musicians and theatrical folk have been attracted to the valley, some to make their permanent homes here, others to stay only so long as they needed for seclusion, meditation, or self-discovery. Ojai has been kind to the creative imagination, has been prodigal of inspiration. It is home to Beatrice Wood,

the ceramist; to Esther Bruton, who works such fascinating abstract designs in terrazzo; to the sculptress Eugenia Everett; and to the distinguished painter Guy Ignon. But long before these artists came to Ojai, the Indians had been sensitive to its unique atmosphere. Legend says that the tribes fought their battles anywhere and everywhere in Southern California, but never in this valley. This, they recognized, was sacred ground, and they came here to smoke their peace pipes . . .

It is no paradox that Ojai’s insistence on the integrity of the classics should be complemented by serious attention to the moderns. To cross the bridge from the familiar to the new is only apparently difficult; and it is actually easy for those who recognize that modernism has found its roots in a tradition that had only been forgotten….It is part of Ojai’s policy to encourage new talents and thus to demonstrate its belief that music is a living and continuous art.

There is nothing revolutionary, nothing iconoclastic, about the Ojai policy. It does not consider the intimate approach a virtue merely because splendor has become a vice. It has observed and correctly diagnosed some of the causes of decay in contemporary concert life. It has seen where artistic probity and commercial success have parted company. It has become sensitive to the temper of our own period. It is vanguard, certainly. One might even say that its direction is that of intellectualism, and that it is sensitive to the fashions prevailing in the creative regions of the world of art.

But those fashions, be it noted, are being set by the best minds of today. Ojai finds it good to be in the company of such minds.

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Thursday, June 9, 2022 | 5:00pm Ojai Art Center

A Passageway Between Shores Paul Appleby tenor | Keir GoGwilt violin | Carolyn Chen composer | Divya Victor poet

This concert is made possible with the generous support of Claire and David Oxtoby

OJAI ART CENTER 113 S. MONTGOMERY STREET

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Divya VICTOR/Carolyn CHEN

Divya Victor readings from Curb, set by Carolyn Chen

Carolyn CHEN/Divya VICTOR

Absence of Reliable Ghosts

Keir GOGWILT/Celeste ORAM

Craigie Hill

Keir GOGWILT

The Lass of Roch Royal

Celeste ORAM/Jean RITCHIE

Cool of the Day

A Passageway Between Shores I first met Carolyn Chen when I performed her piece for solo violin, Regarding Chickens, Death. The piece encapsulated for me the unique power of Carolyn’s imagination, which brings the musical body and instrument in relation to creatures, sensations, micro- and macrocosmic phenomena. Carolyn first read Divya Victor’s poetry on the website of the Press at Colorado College. She ended up composing around poems from Divya’s book, Curb, extending the intense vocality of Divya’s recitations into melody, harmony, and accumulating rhythmic refrains, or else accompanying Divya’s speech and song with manipulated field recordings. Divya’s poems chronicle a vast web of South Asian immigrant experiences in American cities and suburbs, navigating scenes of everyday life, governmental bureaucracy, and instances of domestic terrorism. “Frequency” documents the testimony of Alka Sinha at the sentencing hearing for the death of her husband Divyendu Sinha in 2013. She began her testimony by playing a recording of his

voicemail greeting. Curb 4 responds to the death of Sunando Sen, a print-shop owner who was pushed off the subway platform into an oncoming train in 2012 by a nationalist who believed that he was responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center.

song, sung by Elizabeth Cronin, and recorded by Jean Ritchie. Celeste Oram’s arrangement of Jean Ritchie’s own song, “The Cool of the Day,” follows a similar practice of chronicling poetry and traditional music in ways that disrupt linear notions of cultural transference.

My pieces for this program derive from experiments with poetry and music, which began life in collaboration with both Carolyn and composer Celeste Oram. These pieces utilize the “starling” poetry form, which places words on a grid matrix of 27 spaces. Having written in starling form for the last decade, I began experimenting with the ways in which the form amplified the iterative, recursive nature of syntax, registering subtle musical and semantic shifts through variable timing and phrasing. I found “The Lass of Roch Royal” after hearing Paul Appleby sing “The Lass of Augrim”: the Irish version of Roch Royal, which appears in James Joyce’s story, “The Dead.” I found a recording of this continually transfigured

If these webs of influence seem tangled, it is only because they reflect the nature of art-making in a world whose connectedness knows nothing of niche or genre. Our voices are the sum of our experiences, and our experiences are intensely networked: activities of reading, singing, mothering, and fathering are constantly bringing us into unexpected connection with others. In this moment in which our darkest impulses are hell-bent on dividing us, I imagine this work as the practice of tracing our messy globality and illuminating the many passageways connecting us.

—KEIR GOGWILT

This concert is approximately 55 minutes.

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Thursday, June 9, 2022 | 8:00pm Libbey Bowl

Opening Night AMOC* and special guests Mari Yoshinaga percussion | Gleb Kanasevich clarinet | Carrie Frey viola Julius EASTMAN

Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc Text by the composer | Davóne Tines bass-baritone

Iannis XENAKIS

Rebonds B Jonny Allen percussion | Julia Eichten dancer and choreographer

Eric WUBBELS

gretchen am spinnrade Coleman Itzkoff cello | Conor Hanick piano

Frederic RZEWSKI

Coming Together Davóne Tines bass-baritone | Emi Ferguson flute | Miranda Cuckson violin Matthew Aucoin piano | Doug Balliett double bass

Bob DYLAN

Masters of War (version by Odetta) Julia Bullock soprano | Miranda Cuckson violin | Keir GoGwilt violin Coleman Itzkoff cello | Doug Balliett double bass | Conor Hanick piano

This concert is made possible with the generous support of Cathryn and Tom Krause

INTERMISSION Kate SOPER

The Rose Once Blown from The Romance of the Rose Text by the composer | Paul Appleby tenor | Keir GoGwilt violin

Celeste ORAM

the power of moss Text by Jo Randerson | Paul Appleby tenor | Keir GoGwilt violin

Join us for a Pop-Up Performance Tom JOHNSON: Nine Bells excerpt 7:15pm, Libbey Park Jonny Allen percussion Julia Eichten dancer and choreographer

Michael HERSCH

scars plummet to the corners: XIX and XX World Premiere and AMOC* commission Emi Ferguson flute | Conor Hanick piano

Orlando GIBBONS (arr. HERSCH)

Fantasia World Premiere Emi Ferguson flute | Miranda Cuckson violin | Coleman Itzkoff cello

Matthew AUCOIN

Shaker Dance from The No One’s Rose (arranged for AMOC*) AMOC* instrumentalists | Gleb Kanasevich clarinet Carrie Frey viola | Mari Yoshinaga percussion

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Julius EASTMAN (1940-90) Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc (1981)

Bob DYLAN (b. 1941) Masters of War (version by Odetta from 1965)

Michael HERSCH (b. 1971) scars plummet to the corners: XIX and XX (2020)

Iannis XENAKIS (1922-2001) Rebonds B (1987-89)

Kate SOPER (b. 1981) The Rose Once Blown from The Romance of the Rose (2020)

Orlando GIBBONS (1583-1625) Fantasia arranged by Michael Hersch (2020)

Eric WUBBELS (b. 1980) gretchen am spinnrade (2016) Frederic RZEWSKI (1938-2021) Coming Together (1974)

Celeste ORAM (b. 1990) the power of moss (2021)

Matthew AUCOIN (b. 1990) Shaker Dance (2021)

Invitation to the Feast The word festival originates from a Latin word indicating a religious holiday which made its way into English via medieval French. A web-like growth of associations has led to today’s secular connotations (especially in the arts) of celebration and entertainment. But lurking behind all this is the ancient idea of a sacred rite that allows us to participate in something outside the routine of ordinary time, to gain illuminating perspectives on what is normally taken for granted.

The members of AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company) and their colleagues are most at home with such intersections, where meanings proliferate and even different eras overlap. Inhabiting multiple identities and disciplines, they are virtuosos of the polysemous. Their opening concert offers a taste of the extraordinary range of passions that inspire AMOC*’s members.

Julius Eastman’s legacy is one of the major underlying themes of AMOC*’s collectively curated festival program. Davóne Tines sets the stage with Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc, intoning the repeated, slightly varied fragments with which Eastman builds this solemn invocation. Using a single voice, Eastman provocatively combines contemplation

—the attitude necessary to open the way to spirituality—with an urge to engage and be heard.

Intimations of an enigmatic ritual also animate Rebonds, one of Iannis Xenakis’ landmark contributions to the percussion repertoire, here presented as a calling card for Jonny Allen. He plays the second of the two independent movements comprising the piece. Xenakis dramatizes the phenomenon of bounce (“rebonds”), generating friction between a “rational” underlying pulse and counter-gestures and accents that push, centrifugally, toward chaos. Another layer is added with the timbral contrast—and attempt at synthesis—between drum skins (bongos, tumba, tom-tom, and bass drum) and woodblocks.

We move from solos to a duo with New York-based Eric Wubbels’s gretchen am spinnrade, written in the fraught time of the U.S. presidential election in the fall of 2016. Referring to the figure of Schubert’s angst-ridden Gretchen at her spinning wheel, uncertain of her lover, Wubbels superimposes the “wheel of karma,” with its “turning of cause and effect.” His spinner is trapped in “compulsive loops of thought and action, repetitive behavior and cycles of history”—though their details

and textures change kaleidoscopically as the music alternates between “relentless motoric circuits [and] plateaus of regular, ‘idling’ motion.”

With Coming Together by the late Frederic Rzewski, AMOC* taps into a vein of protest music that intersects with Minimalism. A letter written during confinement by Sam Melville, one of the prisoners killed by police during the Attica prison uprising of 1971, inspired Rzewski to create a “musical treatment” using open instrumentation and recitation of the text by the players.

The entire ensemble performance sprouts from a bass line of perpetual 16th notes (piano or bass)—the only notated part of the score—as Rzewski plays expressive adlibbing against dogged inflexibility.

The spontaneity of reinterpreting a “fixed” text is a quintessential facet of Bob Dylan’s art, as anyone who has experienced him in live performance knows. Layered over this foundation is the light that the singer and civil rights activist Odetta shed, with her trailblazing 1965 album of cover versions, on early Dylan songs. Julia Bullock in turn contributes her voice to this tradition with an account of Masters of War, Dylan’s oracular Cold War protest song (released on 1963’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan) CONTINUED }}

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COMING TOGETHER

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text from a letter written by Sam Melville while imprisoned at Attica:

INVITATION TO THE FEAST

I think the combination of age and a greater coming together is responsible for the speed of the passing time. It’s six months now, and I can tell you truthfully, few periods in my life have passed so quickly. I am in excellent physical and emotional health.

There are doubtless subtle surprises ahead, but I feel secure and ready. As lovers will contrast their emotions in times of crisis so am I dealing with my environment. In the indifferent brutality, the incessant noise, the experimental chemistry of food, the ravings of lost hysterical men, I can act with clarity and meaning. I am deliberate, sometimes even calculating, seldom employing histrionics except as a test of the reactions of others. I read much, exercise, talk to guards and inmates, feeling for the inevitable direction of my life.

that unfortunately has become more topical than ever.

Kate Soper’s exploration of the intersection of language, theatricality, and the human voice harmonizes well with the AMOC* aesthetic and comes to the fore in The Romance of the Rose, her new opera for seven voices, chamber ensemble, and electronics loosely adapted from the eponymous 13th-century poem.

Soper describes her work as a fusion of “medieval and contemporary allegory to dramatize the ways in which love, sex, and music wreak havoc on our sense of self.” Its premiere has been delayed by the pandemic, but the brief selection The Rose Once Blown offers a teaser.

Soper’s idiosyncratic combination of wry, self-aware erudition and tenderness reimagines early music idioms from a luminously contemporary angle. the power of moss, by New York-based Celeste Oram, is for voice and “any 12tone instrument.” She sets a poem by her fellow New Zealand writer Jo Randerson, rejecting “the power of the sword” in favor of “the oldest plant EVER,” which “just quietly and softly persists/and is known in every continent.” Oram encourages the musicians to “ornament and personalize their parts ad libitum” in a way that expresses the interests they bring to the table. scars plummet to the corners is another work whose premiere has been delayed by the pandemic. Michael Hersch left an indelible impact on Ojai audiences with his elegy I hope we get a chance to visit soon at the 2018 Festival curated by Patricia Kopatchinskaja. Hersch’s 29-movement cycle for AMOC*, which takes its title from

a line in the poem “Ibeji” by the late English writer Christopher Middleton, is an epic cycle for flute and piano, from which we hear movements XIX and XX. Emi Ferguson explains that she chose these movements because they form a highly contrasting pair—as antipodal as Samsara and Nirvana—and demand the gamut of virtuosity, from rapid-fire articulation (XIX) to the focus needed to evoke a “sparse, still, crystalline world” (XX).

The latter she compares to the image of an oubliette, a closed-off room “where you put people, or yourself, to forget about them.”

Hersch shares with AMOC* an affinity for thinking of early music in new contexts.

We encounter this aspect of his creativity in his arrangement of an organ fantasia

by Orlando Gibbons for flute, violin, and cello.

We close with music Matthew Aucoin wrote for his fellow AMOC* members.

The company’s largest undertaking to date, The No One’s Rose was created in collaboration with the Bay Area-based Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and premiered last August at Stanford. Aucoin has described the work as “a Canterbury Tales of the pandemic,” though its rituals and visions extend beyond that communal crisis. After the pandemic’s strictures, the joy that comes with being able to celebrate live music together again reinforces the dynamics of a festival. The material for Shaker Dance originated as a section of The No One’s Rose. Welcome to the feast.

—THOMAS MAY

This concert is approximately 100 minutes.

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Congratulations to the Ojai music festival community on 75 years of artistic excellence –Stephan Farber | Founder & CEO

Investment Management | Family Office Services www.soundpostcapital.com

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Friday, June 10, 2022 | 8:00am Zalk Theater, Besant Hill School

OJAI Dawns: Lewis + Mitchell Emi Ferguson flute | Gleb Kanasevich clarinet | Clay Zeller-Townson bassoon | Jonny Allen percussion Matthew Aucoin piano | Miranda Cuckson violin | Carrie Frey viola | Doug Balliett double bass George E. LEWIS

Artificial Life 2007, Part 1 Emi Ferguson flute | Gleb Kanasevich clarinet | Clay Zeller-Townson bassoon Jonny Allen percussion | Matthew Aucoin piano | Miranda Cuckson violin Carrie Frey viola | Doug Balliett double bass

Roscoe MITCHELL

Cards from At 440 Oakwood Drive Emi Ferguson flute | Clay Zeller-Townson bassoon Elliot Figg harpsichord | Doug Balliet double bass This work is currently under development through Metropolis Ensemble and is a co-commission with Metropolis Ensemble, Ruckus, and the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet.

George E. LEWIS

There is no intermission during the concert.

ZALK THEATER, BESANT HILL SCHOOL 8585 OJAI SANTA PAULA ROAD

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Artificial Life 2007, Part 2 Emi Ferguson flute | Gleb Kanasevich clarinet | Clay Zeller-Townson bassoon Jonny Allen percussion | Matthew Aucoin piano | Miranda Cuckson violin Carrie Frey viola | Doug Balliett double bass

George E. LEWIS (b. 1952) Artificial Life 2007 (2007)

Roscoe MITCHELL (b. 1944) Cards from At 440 Oakwood Drive (2021)

After AMOC*’s commission of George Lewis’s new opera The Comet was announced, AMOC* violinist Keir GoGwilt suggested we should read Lewis’s book A Power Stronger Than Itself, chronicling the history of the AACM (Association for Advancement of Creative Musicians) as a way to become familiar with the rich legacy from which Lewis sprung. I became deeply absorbed in the music of AACM members, and was wonderfully surprised to hear Roscoe Mitchell, a founding member of the AACM, composer, and multi-instrumentalist, extensively using Baroque instruments, particularly Baroque flutes and recorders, in many of his works. Needless to say, I was incredibly excited by this and reached out to Roscoe Mitchell to express my admiration, our mutual passion for woodwinds old and new, and my hope to work with him. While this all seemed like a dream in the midst of 2020, fast forward a few months and the members of AMOC* are deep in workshop of Lewis’s music with him over Zoom, with Artificial Life as our entry point. At the same time Mitchell is beginning to work on a new concert piece for Ruckus, the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet, and me, combining Baroque, modern classical, and jazz performers under the umbrella of the Metropolis Ensemble, which commissioned the work. It was a beautiful reminder of how life is often circular and reflexive: While Mitchell’s work inspired the next generation of AACM members, including Lewis, this new work of Mitchell’s came about because of our exploration into Lewis’s writing. Both Mitchell and Lewis have an incredible way of inviting the performers into the creative process through instructive improvisation that gives the performers agency within the context of their specific compositional and creative languages. Lewis’s foreword to the score notes that “Artificial Life is a situational-form musical composition designed for ensembles of between eight and thirty (or more) players.”

The work presents a model of group improvisation as an emergent phenomenon arising from negotiation and local intelligence with sounds and silences produced according to the improvisers’ intuition and considered judgment. The piece is open to performers from any musical tradition, including those that do not regularly include improvisation modes of performance, with the instructions serving as a kind of go-to toolbox for producing a range of sounds and forms that will far exceed what the composer would imagine, and for that reason, there is no canonically correct way for the piece to sound. Because of this, no two performances of the piece are the same. Mitchell’s work, similarly, is also clearly structured but allows the performers choices and freedom. Cards from At 440 Oakwood Drive is an excerpt from the larger three-movement work. Given the complexities of getting all nine performers involved together for performances, Mitchell ingeniously created a way for all, groups of, or solo performers to perform independently by creating a set of “cards” for each player that can be performed in any grouping of instruments. The cards invite the performers into Mitchell’s language through unmeasured melodic and harmonic material that may be reorganized, “shuffled,” by the performers, leaving the creation of the musical structure to the performers. The full work is still under development to be premiered in late 2023.

—EMI FERGUSON

Improved Improvisation In A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music, George E. Lewis writes that “histories of post-1960 African American experimental music, which developed in the midst of one of the most turbulent and unstable periods in U.S. history … tend to confound standard narratives.” Based on whiteness, those standard narratives help account for the erasure of “African American artists and

cultural tropes” from the discourse around modern experimental and avant-garde developments. A striking example of such erasure is the long neglect, until recently, of the legacy of Julius Eastman, who is one of the focal points of AMOC*’s Ojai program.

International Contemporary Ensemble, wrote his pathbreaking history of the AACM — the Chicago-based Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians — as an insider. He himself joined the organization while still in his teens, in 1971. Lewis’s multifaceted investigation of its achievements

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IMPROVED IMPROVISATION

and ongoing influence even inspired Afterword, an experimental opera that was featured at the 2017 Ojai Festival as part of the program curated by Music Director Vijay Iyer. Lewis has described Afterword as a “Bildungsoper [a “coming-of age” opera] about Black experimentalists trying to revise and revitalize their practices in the face of resistance [that] also aligns with what is being discussed today as the decolonization of art music.”

He is currently working on an opera commissioned by AMOC*, which is based on W.E.B. Du Bois’s Afrofuturist allegory The Comet.

Artificial Life 2007, which dates from the year in which Lewis published A Power Stronger Than Itself, exemplifies the long-standing interest in the possibilities and implications of improvisation. Instead of a “centralized score” of conventional notation, Lewis provides two pages of instructions — corresponding to Parts 1 and 2, respectively — for each instrumental group (plus “any instrument not envisioned” in his categories). Part 1 presents a grid of 16 “tasks” to be performed sequentially. Part 2 gives instructions for “creating responses” to the ensemble or “creating independent material.”

The “quasi-algorithmic procedures” prescribed to execute AL2007 result

in what Lewis terms “a situationalform musical composition” of group improvisation. This is not “chance music,” nor is it an exercise in free-for-all, openended spontaneity. The protocols Lewis provides require meticulous attention to the situation unique to each performance context; at the same time, they allow the performers “the freedom to create what they want to hear from a combination of the tools provided and their own creative and cultural standpoints.”

Another ingenious negotiation of the dialectic between formal structure and freedom informs the new large-scale work by Roscoe Mitchell, from which we hear an excerpt between the two parts of AL2007. One of AACM’s co-founders and a vastly influential figure as a composer, performer, and teacher, Mitchell is creating a three-movement work of about 40 minutes for nine musicians that fuses Mitchell’s experimentation with jazz and early music instruments. The musicians include Emi Ferguson (playing on both Baroque and modern flutes) with Ruckus and the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet under the auspices of the Metropolis Ensemble.

The first part is to be played by Ruckus with Baroque instruments at A415 pitch, the second by the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet, and the third by both ensembles together — this is the section titled At 440 Oakwood Drive.

In the 1970s, to solve some of the issues Mitchell noticed coming up with ensemble improvisation, he devised a system he calls “cards” — music scored in notated form on separate cards that are distributed to the musicians to arrange ad libitum. Ferguson describes the cards as a process of “guided improvisation” that allows Mitchell “to make sure that the language the performers are using is his, while the way they structure the performance is theirs.”

The performers do not choose what notes to play. But they do get to choose in what order to play their cards, as well as tempo, intensity, and how to interact with the other player(s). “Each time you do it could be different,” says Ferguson. “Or you could take the same path each time.”

Negotiating between this discipline and freedom generates much of the fascination of the works by Mitchell and Lewis. Beyond the realm of musical creativity, the framework of these improvisatory experiments poses philosophical and sociological questions as well. As Lewis notes regarding AL2007, “the success of a given performance … will be less a question of individual freedom than of the assumption of personal responsibility for the sonic environment.”

—THOMAS MAY

This concert is approximately 45 minutes.

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OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL

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O u t n o w a n d co m i n g s oo n f ro m

Nonesuch Caroline Shaw, Sō Percussion

Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part

Caroline Shaw, Sō Percussion, Dawn Upshaw and Gil Kalish Narrow Sea

Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi They’re Calling Me Home

Records Jeremy Denk,

Steve Reich, Ensemble intercontemporain, George Jackson Reich/Richter

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra Mozart Piano Concertos

Caroline Shaw, Attacca Quartet Orange

John Adams Collected Works

A 40-CD career-spanning box set coming this summer

Julia Bullock Walking in the Dark

The Nonesuch debut coming this fall

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Friday, June 10, 2022 | 11:00am Libbey Bowl

EASTMAN Emi Ferguson flute | Miranda Cuckson violin | Seth Parker Woods cello | Doug Balliett double bass Conor Hanick piano | Davóne Tines bass-baritone | Zack Winokur director Julius EASTMAN

Our Father Gay Guerrilla Buddha Stay On It Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc

This concert is made possible with the generous support of Ida and Glenn Mercer

There is no intermission during the concert.

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OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL

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Julius EASTMAN (1940-90) Our Father (1989) Gay Guerrilla (1979) Buddha (1984) Stay On It (1973) Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc (1981)

EASTMAN is a continually developing concert that reflects the performers’ consideration of Julius Eastman’s art and the larger context of his life, creativity, and humanity. The project came out of the proposition: “What is possible if all members of a performing ensemble are present for every step of the creation of a performance?” This led to a commitment each collaborator made to meet weekly, for over a year, to discover and digest Julius Eastman’s work, share personal stories about what his absence from our educations has meant, play his music and the music of his contemporaries, and build a collective knowledge and informed performance practice together. This work has culminated in more than just a concert, but a way of working collegially and collaboratively — with care and holistic engagement of material that seeks to honor it through deep contextualization. This is our effort to pay homage.

—DAVÓNE TINES

A Wandering Monk The rediscovery of Julius Eastman that has been unfolding in recent years entails more than bringing an unjustly neglected composer to light. It has implications as well for the dominant narrative of America’s new music scene in the last decades of the 20th century.

To what extent did systemic racism and homophobia — realities Eastman confronted head-on in his work — prevent artists from receiving proper recognition for their contributions? How does a fuller understanding of the diversity of composers engaged in Minimalism, for example, challenge our understanding of that revolutionary style as a reaction to Modernism? And how does Eastman’s unapologetic, fiery, tangled intensity complicate the standard reception of this turning point in music history?

Initially given a traditional musical education — he grew up singing in church

and studied piano and then composition at the Curtis Institute — Eastman won renown as a pianist and singer, immediately gravitating to New York’s experimental scene in the later 1960s and the 1970s. He joined Meredith Monk’s ensemble, was championed by Lukas Foss, and even sang under the baton of Pierre Boulez. And, in the midst of his life as a performer, sometime teacher, and political activist, Eastman composed — wrestling his wildly original, provocative, militant, ecstatic musical visions into existence.

During the Reagan-era 1980s, Eastman succumbed to addiction and became homeless on New York’s Lower East Side. His death at the age of 49 went unreported for eight months, until Kyle Gann published an obituary in the Village Voice. But the tragic facts of his final decade’s downward spiral should not distract from the creative exuberance of

the singular phenomenon that was Julius Eastman. His defiance of conventional aesthetic boundaries encouraged the kind of innovative intersections that are a model for AMOC*, so it follows that the company feels a particular kinship with Eastman. This program celebrates the wide range of Eastman’s achievement and its special resonance for the present moment.

Even if his transgressive life story hints at the trope of the misunderstood, individual Romantic genius, Eastman rejected the division of labor that historically relegated the composer to “the role of the unattended queen bee,” as he wrote in his 1979 text The Composer as Weakling, instead urging the composer to “become the total musician.” One aspect of his music that is especially inspiring, according to Zack Winokur, is CONTINUED }}

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A WANDERING MONK

that it “changes each time it is realized in performance and, as such, is a radically collaborative creation.”

Stay On It, for example, the earliest piece on the program, has no fixed instrumentation and is fueled by an improvisatory, communal energy that rejects linear control in favor of ad lib, repetitions, and reconfigurations of small cells. Its pop-tinged joyousness makes for a fascinating contrast with the inwarddirected serenity of Buddha, the score of which consists of a single page of 20 lines (instrumentation again unspecified) contained within a sketch of a large egg.

Eastman’s musical language in the early 1970s, observes Ryan Dohoney, “combined a collage aesthetic of multiple unsynchronized layers, electronic manipulation, repetition, and the quotation of popular song,” while he later focused more intently on Minimalist processes in works of more-expansive dimensions.

At the same time, Eastman infused his

experimentalism with the passion of political engagement. “What I am trying to achieve is to be what I am to the fullest,” he proclaimed in an interview in 1976.

“Black to the fullest, a musician to the fullest, a homosexual to the fullest.”

The Stonewall Riots were only a decade in the past when Eastman created Gay Guerrilla, which he premiered in a 1980 concert in a realization for four pianos.

The piece radically reclaims religious associations as it layers bell-like sonorities into ever-more-ecstatic constellations, eventually quoting Luther’s iconic hymn tune A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. Eastman referred to himself as “a wandering monk,” and his spiritual quest as it relates to his music is a rich, complex topic. AMOC*’s program is framed by powerfully ritualistic pieces from his final decade that set Eastman’s own texts, echoing prayers and litanies that seem to amalgamate the fragments of a long-lost religion into a newfound revelation.

Both Our Father, a compelling plea in spare harmonies and his last-known score, and the Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc call for the commanding, foundation-shaking deep voice for which Eastman was acclaimed. The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc is an extended instrumental work for 10 cellos, for which Eastman later decided to write the a cappella vocal Prelude. He was working on his recording of the Prelude, which he never performed live, around the time he was forced out of his New York apartment and rendered homeless.

In part of a spoken prelude Eastman also recorded for The Holy Presence, he addressed the daring saint directly: “Dear Joan, I have dedicated myself to the liberation of my own person firstly. I shall emancipate myself from the materialistic dreams of my parents; I shall emancipate myself from the bind of the past and the present; I shall emancipate myself from myself.”

—THOMAS MAY

This concert is approximately 80 minutes.

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OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL

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Friday, June 10, 2022 | 2:30pm Greenberg Center, Ojai Valley School

Open Rehearsal Open Rehearsal World Premiere and AMOC* commission Directed by Bobbi Jene Smith Choreographed and performed by Paul Appleby, Julia Bullock, Julia Eichten, Vinson Fraley, Jonathan Fredrickson, Keir GoGwilt, Conor Hanick, Coleman Itzkoff, Jesse Kovarsky, Yiannis Logothetis, Or Schraiber, Bobbi Jene Smith, and Stephanie Troyak MUSICAL SELECTIONS:

This concert is made possible with the generous support of Smith-Hobson Foundation

There is no intermission during the concert.

Repeat performance on Sunday, June 12 at 2:30pm at the Greenberg Center.

GREENBERG CENTER, OJAI VALLEY SCHOOL 723 EL PASEO ROAD, OJAI

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OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL

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Giovanni SOLLIMA

Lamentatio for Solo Cello

Franz SCHUBERT

Ständchen

Connie CONVERSE

One by One (recorded 1954; new arrangement 2017 by Jeremy SISKIND)

J.S. BACH

Gigue from Suite No. 2 in D minor for Solo Cello

Pete SEEGER

One Grain of Sand

Monique Andrée SERF (“Barbara”) La Solitude BACH

Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D Minor for Solo Violin

Jacques BREL

Ces Gens-là

Frédéric CHOPIN

Prelude in E minor, Op. 28, no. 4

HILDEGARD OF BINGEN

“O rubor sanguinis” for the Feast of St. Ursula, Antiphon D 167r, R 471vb

Johnny CHANG

Hildegard Resonances

Giovanni SOLLIMA (b. 1962) Lamentatio for Solo Cello (1998) Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Ständchen (1828) Connie CONVERSE (b. 1924-disappeared in 1974) One by One (recorded 1954; new arrangement 2017 by Jeremy SISKIND, b. 1986)

J.S. BACH (1685-1750) Gigue from Suite No. 2 in D minor for Solo Cello (c. 1717-23) Pete SEEGER (1919-2014) One Grain of Sand (1958) Monique Andrée SERF (“Barbara”) (1930-97) La Solitude (1964) BACH Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D Minor for Solo Violin (c. 1717-20)

Jacques BREL (1929-78) Ces Gens-là (1965) Frédéric CHOPIN (1810-49) Prelude in E minor, Op. 28, no. 4 (1839) HILDEGARD OF BINGEN (1098-1179) “O rubor sanguinis” for the Feast of St. Ursula, Antiphon D 167r, R 471vb (mid-12th century) Johnny CHANG Hildegard Resonances (2013)

Rewriting the Script About a decade ago, references to the so-called “10,000-hour rule” seemed ubiquitous. The promise that worldclass expertise in any field will result from consistent practice accrued over so many hours is a temptingly simplistic myth based on a reassuringly predictable reward system. Among other things, it presupposes a stable world in which the relationship between practice and an elusive expertise — between rehearsal and “prime time” — is linear. But what if the parameters are no longer reliable?

What happens when the very thing for which we are rehearsing has been called into question? When the world has been broken by an unforeseen catastrophe, like a pandemic?

These are some of the questions lurking behind Bobbi Jene Smith’s latest undertaking with her colleagues from AMOC*, Open Rehearsal, and the project from which it evolved, Broken Theater. For its 2020-21 season, the experimental theater company La MaMa (in New York’s East Village) invited Smith to become a resident artist. Joined by a team of collaborators at the height of the pandemic — including many of the same

artists featured in Open Rehearsal — she was given free rein to “just start working,” recalls Smith.

In 2019 the acclaimed choreographer and dancer had created her work Lost Mountain at La MaMa, described by the New York Times as “a dreamlike domestic drama.” Amid the pandemic’s unprecedented circumstances, Smith and her team began generating material around the concept of a group of people who find themselves in an abandoned theater — an emblem of a world out of joint, in which the usual connection between performers and audience has been disrupted.

The new work, Broken Theater, originated as part of a residency at MASS MoCA in the fall of 2020, which described it as a “live cinema dance performance.” Smith and her colleagues imagined a “broken theatrics” to convey what was happening in the world. She says the questions forced on everyone by the pandemic were intensified by the scenario of performers coming to terms with these strange conditions: “Where did the script get lost? Where do we go from now? Who is

going to write the new script? All of these questions started to come up, such as what is the difference between the role you think you’re playing and the role that you’re actually playing — and how is that mirrored in our real lives?” Together, Smith and her team imagined a set of archetypal theatrical characters and the patterns they confront: the Mother, the Brothers, the Actress, the Actor, the Bully…

The relationship between Broken Theater and Open Rehearsal, Smith explains, is that “they’re almost happening in parallel universes. Open Rehearsal is like the open rehearsal for Broken Theater, where you often can’t tell whether it’s the performance or the rehearsal, what was written or what was off-book.” Open Rehearsal also plays with this ambiguity: “It’s a very detailed, precise performance that is disguised as a rehearsal.”

In the new work, Smith continues to explore the dynamic of multiple identities among her collaborators: “Everyone in this behind-the-scenes theater company has a mirror part. So the mother I represent is also the director. Julia Eichten, one of the dancers, is also the stage manager.

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REWRITING THE SCRIPT

Coleman Itzkoff is also the rehearsal director and timekeeper. Everyone has these reverse roles, as actors and as other characters.”

About her own process, Smith says: “We all are behaving in this space together.

So we try to find a common language of performing. The pandemic has been an amazing time to be reassured of the powerful link between music and dance, and how it goes beyond any sort of reasoning or words, and how that meeting point is something sacred. It’s important

for us to discover that meeting place together.”

The eclectic musical selections reflect the ambiguity of roles as well. Coleman Itzkoff, for example, is an actor in the theater company who also plays cello (rather than an “accompanist” with his cello) — identities that are inseparable.

His character as the cello player — which company member Or Schraiber (Smith’s husband) developed together with Itzkoff and Yiannis Logothetis in the spinoff piece The Cello Player (see p. 72) — prompted

questions of who this person is in the context of Open Rehearsal: “Maybe he used to be a star cello player and now he’s stuck in this theater with no audience,” Smith suggests. “What are the pieces that he will play over and over again? And what are the human mechanisms that make someone play the music that they will play?” In relation to the audience, the approach in Open Rehearsal is “like taking off the magic veil of a performance. But in doing that, actually, it becomes more magical.”

—THOMAS MAY

This concert is approximately 60 minutes.

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OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL

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Announcing the 104th Concert Season ⳼ 2022/2023 INTERNATIONAL SERIES at the Granada Theatre MASTERSERIES at the Lobero Theatre

CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Final Tour with Music Director Riccardo Muti ©Todd Rosenberg Photography

Season Subscriptions On Sale Now!

For more information, visit camasb.org

C O M M U N I T Y A R T S M U S I C A S S O C I AT I O N O F S A N TA B A R B A R A

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Friday, June 10, 2022 | 5:00pm Libbey Bowl

the echoing of tenses Arthur Sze poet | Victoria Chang poet | Paul Appleby tenor Miranda Cuckson violin | Anthony Cheung piano Stewart GOODYEAR

Prelude and Dance from Suite for Solo Violin World Premiere Miranda Cuckson violin

Charles IVES

Sunrise Paul Appleby tenor | Miranda Cuckson violin | Anthony Cheung piano

Anthony CHEUNG

the echoing of tenses World Premiere 1. The Network (Arthur Sze) 2. Misconjugate (Jenny Xie) Interlude 1 3. The Golden State (Cathy Park Hong) Interlude 2: Expenditures (Jenny Xie)

This concert is made possible with the generous support of Hyon Chough and Maurice Singer

The world premiere of the echoing of tenses is commissioned by the Ojai Music Festival with a generous gift in honor of Nancy Sanders

There is no intermission during the concert.

4. In Search Of (Jenny Xie) 5. The Gift (Li-Young Lee) Interlude 3: Dear Grandmother (Victoria Chang) 6. The Gift (Ocean Vuong) 7. A Guide to Usage: Mine (Monica Youn) Interlude 4: Sleepers (Arthur Sze) 8. Brownacre (Monica Youn) Interlude 5: Memory (Victoria Chang) 9. Transfigurations (Arthur Sze) Arthur Sze poet | Victoria Chang poet | Paul Appleby tenor Miranda Cuckson violin | Anthony Cheung piano and keyboard David Bird sound design

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Stewart GOODYEAR (b. 1978) Prelude and Dance from Suite for Solo Violin (2022)

Charles IVES (1874-1954) Sunrise (1926)

Anthony CHEUNG (b. 1982) the echoing of tenses (2022)

I’ve always found Anthony Cheung’s music exquisite, vividly colorful, haunting, and a sophisticated meld of ideas all over the map, made his own. He and I have been friends since we were graduate students, passionately absorbed in music.

When I asked him to write for AMOC*, he sat with the idea a long while and then sent me this poetry by Asian-American writers. He is Chinese-American, I’m half-Taiwanese. the echoing of tenses threads together the voices of seven writers… different generations, genders, and experiences of America. It’s about human experience of tactile and emotional memories, intimate family bonds, and the resonances and confusions of language.

—MIRANDA CUCKSON

Networks of Memory Where do personal and collective memories connect? How are such memories articulated by poetry, by music, by their combination into still another language? Is each memory “another truth in a vast network of truths,” as the poet Arthur Sze ponders in his poem “The Network”? The composer and pianist Anthony Cheung prompts these and related questions with his new song cycle commissioned by the Ojai Music Festival, the echoing of tenses. Cheung had not set out initially to write a piece about memory when AMOC* member Miranda Cuckson — who chose music by Cheung as part of her recital at the 2021 Festival — invited him to compose for the company. He began by selecting seven Asian American poets with whose work he felt a special resonance after a period of reading and research, and in dialogue with AMOC*’s co-founder Matthew Aucoin.

“But this theme of memory kept returning in various ways, whether it was

autobiographical or cultural,” Cheung explains, “and whether the poets were writing from personal or family experience, or imagining conversations with family members, both living and deceased.” He found himself drawn to texts that were “haunted by ideas of memory and that took very individual approaches to that theme.” The opportunity to work with singers and texts, Cheung adds, represents a new direction for his music.

The seven poets, all living, range widely in style and personality and come from different generations. In the order in which they appear in the echoing of tenses, they include the Santa Fe–based poet and translator Arthur Sze; Jenny Xie, based in New York; Cathy Park Hong, poetry editor of The New Republic and author of Minor Feelings; Chicago-based Li-Young Lee; Los Angeles poet Victoria Chang, author of the recent Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief; Ocean Vuong, recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Award

in 2019; and poet and former lawyer Monica Youn.

Each of the texts is independent, but Cheung, who grew up in a Chinese American family in the San Francisco Bay Area, homes in on shared threads of imagery involving nature, time, the power of language, and intergenerational connections. Musically, he uses textures and tunings to illuminate the poems and lend coherence to the cycle, which is scored for tenor, violin, and piano plus a full-size electronic keyboard. Prerecorded sounds and instrumental and spoken samples created in collaboration with sound designer David Bird add still another layer.

Working with a program that allows him to use either preset or free tunings, Cheung explains that the combination of acoustic piano with retuned keyboard produces a “microtonal sheen.” Although

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NETWORKS OF MEMORY

the cycle is mostly written in “an extended tonal idiom,” the use of microtunings and “collision of tuning systems” generate an aura of ambiguity — “a sweetness but also sourness.”

For the sung material, Cheung tried to match the distinctive lyrical quality of Paul Appleby’s voice, especially for LiYoung Lee’s “The Gift” (a duet for tenor and violin) and the final song, Arthur Sze’s “Transfigurations,” whose “aromas of place and histories seem especially suited to Paul’s naturally lyrical voice.”

Other poems are recited — by the poets themselves, whether live (Arthur Sze and Victoria Chang) or in recordings, who will intersperse other poetic recitations with the cycle. Cheung and Miranda Cuckson also recite in alternation while playing their instruments (Jenny Xie’s “In Search Of”), and all three musicians overlap in

a combination of singing and reciting in Monica Youn’s “A Guide to Usage: Mine,” one of the moments where Cheung uses just intonation in a way that emulates how Harry Partch tried “to approximate the contours of the spoken voice in recitation.”

Like Anthony Cheung’s new work, Stewart Goodyear’s Suite for Solo Violin engages with memories inspired by his family background. Although best known as a pianist from Toronto, Goodyear has increasingly turned his attention to composing. For Miranda Cuckson, who was a fellow student at Juilliard, he wrote his recent six-movement Suite.

The violinist explains that it combines homages to Goodyear’s dual heritage as Trinidadian on his mother’s side and British on his late father’s. She has selected the third and fourth movements: a rhapsodic Prelude, which leads into the exuberant,

Caribbean-flavored Dance. In the latter, Goodyear blends calypso rhythms with harmonics that imitate the sound of steel pan drums.

As a preamble to the echoing of tenses, we hear Charles Ives’s meditation on the passage of time in Sunrise—the final piece he wrote, in 1926, before deciding to abandon composition. Ives spent the remainder of his long life revising past works. He left only a sketch for this song, which was edited into a performable version by John Kirkpatrick. Ives also wrote the words, inspired by Thoreau’s Walden and conveying “the hope of the New Day.” Opening with the veiled, impressionist sound of muted violin and opaque harmonies, his music poignantly balances its impulse to ascend with gestures of “a dying fall.”

—THOMAS MAY

This concert is approximately 60 minutes.

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Friday, June 10, 2022 | 8:00pm Libbey Bowl

Harawi Julia Bullock soprano | Conor Hanick piano | Bobbi Jene Smith dancer/choreography Or Schraiber dancer/choreography | Carlos Soto costume design John Torres lighting design | Mark Grey sound design | Zack Winokur director Olivier MESSIAEN

The Harawi project is made possible by the generous support of Stephen Block, Raulee Marcus, and Don Pattison

There is no intermission during the concert.

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Harawi: Song of Love and Death World Premiere of semi-staged production 1.

La ville qui dormait, toi (“The City That Slept, You”)

2.

Bonjour toi, colombe verte (“Hello There, You Green Dove”)

3.

Montagnes (“Mountains”)

4.

Doundou tchil

5.

L’amour de Piroutcha (“Piroutcha’s Love”)

6.

Répétition planétaire (“Planetary Repetition”)

7.

Adieu (“Farewell”)

8.

Syllabes (“Syllables”)

9.

L’escalier redit, gestes du soleil (“Staircase Retold, Gestures of the Sun”)

10. Amour oiseau d’étoile (“Love Star-bird”) 11.

Katchikatchi les étoiles (“Katchikatchi the Stars”)

12. Dans le noir (“In the Dark”)

Olivier MESSIAEN (1908-92) Harawi: Song of Love and Death (1945)

Living archives expressed in the body — Repetition utilized in order to better understand — Improvisation encouraged — Complex rhythms articulated — Movement and sound become extensions of each other — Broken words are uttered — To voice one’s surroundings is a way to be immersed in and expanded by them.* These are some values intrinsic to the traditions of Harawi (Qarawi) — Andean music which is still expressed across the diverse cultures and peoples in Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador and beyond.

Olivier Messiaen’s life circumstances and relationships often seemed to infuse his compositions with explicit references and associations.

He began to write his song cycle, Harawi after being a prisoner of war during World War II. The mind and body of Claire Delbos (a fellow musician, source of inspiration, and his wife) had begun to degenerate slowly, and a new love partner was entering his life. Messiaen only became aware of Andean Harawi traditions through an ethnographic anthology written by Marguerite and Raoul d’Harcourt. The melodies and themes seemed to provide a means through which Messiaen could process why love, loss, absence and presence are human preoccupations and how shattered realities give way to expansiveness.

Our desire to perform this work originated from an intuitive interest in Messiaen’s poetic and musical expressions. Since then, our discussions with artists Luz Zenaida Hualpa García and Karen Michelsen Castañón have informed our explorations and revealed deep threads of resonance. We look forward to sharing where they have led us. * These are fragments and impressions from conversations with Luz Zenaida Hualpa García, dancer and choreographer, and Karen Michelsen Castañón, visual artist.

—JULIA BULLOCK

Falling Upward: Messiaen’s Love Star-Bird “I suffer from a distant music that I do not know,” wrote the poet Cécile Sauvage in her collection L’âme en bourgeon (“The Budding Soul”), which she produced while pregnant with Olivier Messiaen.

The composer was fond of remarking that with this line his mother foretold his vocation. But it might even be viewed more particularly as a premonition of the ecstatic, otherworldly conjurings of Messiaen’s musical language — a language that seeks to reach “from the canyons to the stars” or even to the “lightning flashes

over the beyond,” to borrow two titles from his catalogue.

Yet these mystical yearnings are grounded in a profound gratitude for the sublunary world, for the glories of nature and the passions of lovers who “share a shadow.”

All of these aspects converge in Harawi, a relatively early work by the 37-year-old Messiaen. Harawi is the last of his three large-scale song cycles — all for voice and piano — which also include Poèmes pour Mi (1936) and Chants de terre et de

ciel (1938). He orchestrated only one of these (Poèmes pour Mi), but the cosmic range of Messiaen’s poetic and musical vision in Harawi suggests a work of far vaster dimensions — a work that belies the score’s modest forces of a singer and pianist.

Messiaen’s fascination with non-European cultures, which can be found across his oeuvre, here takes the form of inspiration from the ancient Andean tradition of Harawi (known as yaraví to Spanish CONTINUED }}

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FALLING UPWARD: MESSIAEN’S LOVE STAR-BIRD

speakers and today particularly associated with Peru). This genre linking Quechuan poetry, music, and ritual centers around songs often dealing with lost love and its pangs, but also other kinds of sorrow.

Messiaen’s knowledge of this Andean tradition was limited to a collection of Andean folk songs published in 1925 by a French ethnomusicologist and her husband. What seized his attention was the implicit analogy between these love songs depicting the obstacles of the world and ending in death and the Celtic myth of Tristan and Isolde (hence his subtitle).

Messiaen wrote his own texts for the 12 poems of the cycle, imbuing them with his colorful, dreamlike, spiritually tinged brand of surrealism. He borrowed some of his imagery from the Andean source, as well as the overall concept of songs of love and death but amalgamated these with his own interpretation of the Tristan myth to trace a narrative of love so intense

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that it can find fulfillment only in death.

Yet Tristan and Isolde make no explicit appearance here. Messiaen calls his Isolde figure Piroutcha, while her lover is never named. Nor do they figure in the two later works Messiaen singled out as likewise referring to this legend: the Turangalîla Symphony (1948) and Cinq rechants for a cappella choir (also 1948). “I’ve preserved only the idea of a fatal and irresistible love, which, as a rule, leads to death and which, to some extent, invokes death,” the composer said, “for it is a love that transcends the body, transcends even the limitations of the mind, and grows to a cosmic scale.”

The specter of Europe in ruins — Messiaen composed Harawi in the summer of 1945, in the months immediately following the end of the war — must have left its mark on the apocalyptic intensity of what he imagined. At the same time, the composer was coming to terms with a personal

tragedy involving his wife, Claire Delbos, also a composer (and violinist). In fact, she set to music L’âme en bourgeon, the book of poems by Messiaen’s mother.

Following an operation, Delbos began suffering severe memory loss and had to be institutionalized for the rest of her life.

There has been much speculation around the extent to which Harawi might reflect not only the anguish Messiaen experienced as he was losing his beloved first wife — did it mark his artistic “farewell” to her? — but his conflicting joy over the new love who had recently entered his life, the pianist Yvonne Loriod, whom he married following the death of Delbos in 1961. The composer remained circumspect in commenting on Harawi.

Messiaen wrote Harawi and his two other song cycles for the dramatic soprano Marcelle Bunlet, whose “flexible voice and extended tessitura” he admired, and he

acknowledged the cycle’s extraordinary demands on the singer. For the piano part, Messiaen’s signature bird evocations have developed well beyond his practice in Quartet for the End of Time (1941), and he balances complexity and simplicity in mesmerizing and strikingly original ways.

The preludial “La ville qui dormait, toi” sets the stage for the cycle’s implied narrative, which begins with the second song and with the introduction of one of Messiaen’s key symbols, the youthful, hope-inspiring green dove (“colombe vert”), as Piroutcha is called by her lover, complemented by the endearment “limpid pearl.” Although each of the dozen songs establishes a selfcontained atmosphere, the cycle is linked through recurrent poetic and musical images. Messiaen introduces a unifying love theme in the second song that recurs in “Adieu” (the seventh song), which is the fulcrum and the longest of the cycle, and in the final “Dans le noir.”

After the funereal intimations of “Adieu” and the sorrow of Piroutcha’s departure that conclude the first part — this is the one song with an actual reference to the Tristan myth (specifically, to the love potion, with “philtre à deus voix”) — Harawi moves on to a new plane of love’s ecstatic bliss, calling for the highest note of the vocal part in “L’escalier redit” (“The Stair Repeats”) at full force. One of Messiaen’s otherworldly slow movements follows in “Amour oiseau d’étoile” (“Love StarBird”). Here, he found inspiration in the British Surrealist Roland Penrose’s 1937 painting Seeing Is Believing, which depicts a woman’s head upside-down as she falls upward into the sky. He called it “the symbol of the whole of Harawi.”

Other examples of how Messiaen adapted the Quechuan source material he had at hand occur in “Doundou tchil” and “Syllabes,” where he uses Quechuan syllables for onomatopoetic signification,

evoking an image of Piroutcha in a traditional Andean dance with bells around her ankles. The earthy dance becomes conflated with the cosmic “dance of the stars” toward which the lovers hurtle in their transcendent journey.

Apart from the archetypal, mythic layers of Harawi, director Zack Winokur points out that an important consideration for AMOC*’s world premiere production has been “to find where the piece is most on the ground, so that it stays human. What is it to maintain connection with someone who is losing their memory and, as they’re moving through time with you, to realize all of the things that you’ve created with them are going away?”

—THOMAS MAY

This concert is approximately 65 minutes.

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Saturday, June 11, 2022 | 9:00am Chaparral Auditorium

Free Community Event Jay Campbell cello Catherine LAMB

This concert made possible by the generous support of Drs. Bruce Brockman and Bridget Tsao

CHAPARRAL AUDITORIUM 414 EAST OJAI AVENUE, OJAI

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cross/collapse

Catherine LAMB (b. 1982) cross/collapse (2010)

Meditation The ratio-based music of Catherine Lamb exists somewhere between reality and non-reality. Perfect ratios of pitch relationships can only be products of our imaginations — the materiality of the physical world distorts these idealized mathematical purities. As a performer, I try to slow down beating frequencies from rhythmic periodicities to absolute pure fusion, but the curve of this endeavor is inherently asymptotic. It can never

be perfectly attained. The experience of sound itself is also unique to each listener. For each human, the various strata of vibrational complexity and tonal shading come into focus in ways that are completely unique to that person.

But rather than being frustrated by this paradox, I see this friction as immensely generative and spiritually enriching. There is a transcendent distance between

pure numbers and acoustic reality. For me, the proximity to that unreachable space is where listening becomes an allencompassing experience, blurring the boundaries of harmony, melody, pitch, rhythm, mind, and body.

—JAY CAMPBELL

This concert is approximately 45 minutes.

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Saturday, June 11, 2022 | 11:00am Libbey Bowl

About Bach Emi Ferguson flute | Miranda Cuckson violin | Keir GoGwilt violin | Carrie Frey viola Ruckus: Coleman Itzkoff cello | Doug Balliett double bass | Clay Zeller-Townson bassoon Joshua Stauffer lute | Stephen Stubbs theorbo | Elliot Figg keyboard Johann Sebastian BACH

Prelude in G major, after BWV 884 Emi Ferguson flute | Ruckus

Sonata in E minor, BWV 1034 Adagio ma non troppo Allegro Andante Allegro Emi Ferguson flute | Ruckus

Prelude in C minor, after BWV 847 Elliot Figg keyboard | Coleman Itzkoff cello | Doug Balliett double bass

Sonata in C major, BWV 1033 Allegro Adagio Emi Ferguson flute | Ruckus

This concert and the appearance of Ruckus is made possible by the generous support of Hope Tschopik Schneider

Partita in A minor, BWV 1013 Sarabande Emi Ferguson flute

All works by Johann Sebastian Bach, realized and reimagined by Emi Ferguson and Ruckus.

Sonata in E major, BWV 1035 Siciliano Emi Ferguson flute | Ruckus

There is no intermission during the concert.

Prelude in E major, after BWV 815a Emi Ferguson flute | Ruckus Reiko FÜTING

tanz.tanz Miranda Cuckson violin

Cassandra MILLER

About Bach Miranda Cuckson violin | Keir GoGwilt violin Carrie Frey viola | Coleman Itzkoff cello

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Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750) Prelude in G major, after BWV 884 from Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2 (c. 1742) Sonata in E minor, BWV 1034 (1724) Prelude in C minor, after BWV 847 from Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 (c. 1722) Sonata in C major, BWV 1033: Allegro and Adagio (c. 1731)

Partita in A minor, BWV 1013: Sarabande (c. 1722-23) Sonata in E major, BWV 1035: Siciliano (c. 1741) Prelude in E major, after BWV 815a from French Suite No. 4 (c. 1722)

Reiko FÜTING (b. 1970) tanz.tanz (2010) Cassandra MILLER (b. 1976) About Bach (2015)

Taking Bach out of the museum and infusing his music with equal parts tradition, funk, whimsy, and fun, Emi Ferguson and Ruckus present a fresh take on some of Bach’s most playful and transcendent works with their ever-evolving arrangements of Bach’s flute sonatas and keyboard preludes, orchestrated for Baroque flute and the forces of Ruckus.

Ruckus explodes Bach’s single bass line into a rainbow of textures and colors, continually shifting like light over the landscape as Ferguson’s flute lines dance above — uniting Baroque performance practice with our experiences as 21st-century musicians.

—EMI FERGUSON and CLAY ZELLER-TOWNSON

The title of this program takes its name from Cassandra Miller’s string quartet, About Bach. As she explains in her own program note, the opening phrase of the quartet was transcribed from a recording of violist Pemi Paull playing J.S. Bach’s Chaconne; a process of exacting transcription that Miller “developed over some years to apprehend the exact rhythmic musicality of a performance.” The resulting phrase, a kind of “soft-shoe jig” (in Miller’s words), is harmonized and extended, though never exactly repeated, over the course of the 25-minute piece. Reiko Füting’s tanz.tanz is inspired in part by an analysis of Bach’s Chaconne by musicologist Helga Thoene, who identifies melodic and harmonic affinities between the Chaconne and several of Bach’s chorales. Miranda Cuckson plays tanz.tanz in our show with Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, With Care (an early AMOC* production). Also on that piece, I perform Bach’s D minor Chaconne — a connective cell whose absence perhaps makes this program about Bach all the more poignant.

—KEIR GOGWILT

Dance Dance Dance: About and Around Bach An affinity between adventurers in the realms of early and contemporary music is one of the defining traits of AMOC* and their collaborators. That premise underlies today’s program featuring several members of AMOC*, the intrepid Baroque band known as Ruckus, and their guests.

For them, experimenting with period

instruments and practices is no antiquated detour but in fact another face of “new music.” And the two contemporary composers we encounter, Cassandra Miller and Reiko Füting, add their voices to a long tradition that has found creative renewal in and around J.S. Bach’s D minor Chaconne.

For their debut album, Fly the Coop (2019), from which the first part of the program draws, Ruckus joined with AMOC*’s Emi Ferguson to explore Bach’s instrumental music featuring the transverse flute. That instrument suddenly appears in Bach’s compositions with the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, later supplanting the CONTINUED }}

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DANCE DANCE DANCE: ABOUT AND AROUND BACH

recorder during the ensuing decades in Leipzig.

The album presents three of Bach’s sonatas for flute and continuo as well as selected preludes (both familiar and less well-known) as reimagined and realized by Emi Ferguson and her Ruckus colleagues. The sonatas were chosen to chart various stages of the composer’s career and artistic persona: Bach as architectural “craftsman,” as counterpointobsessed “eccentric,” and as mentor, whose music invites flights of fantasy from the performers—including, in the Sonata in C major (BWV 1033), an unexpected excursion into another of his own pieces (Variation 6 from the Goldbergs in the Allegro). On this program, we hear the sonatas in whole or in part, interwoven with the ensemble’s trademark arrangements of varied keyboard preludes, as well as a movement from the Partita for solo flute.

Emi Ferguson’s brand of virtuosity is combined with a radically reimagined execution of the continuo, the

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accompanying, supporting musical line plus harmonic foundation. Ruckus founder and bassoonist Clay Zeller-Townson with his colleagues have expanded the continuo’s palette beyond harpsichord and low strings to include a virtual miniorchestra that grooves and bounces with the sounds of theorbo, Baroque guitar and bassoon, cello, viola da gamba, harpsichord, organ, bass, and even banjo.

Bach himself, in keeping with the musical thinking and custom of his era, frequently adapted and arranged preexisting material (his own as well as that of other composers) for other instruments. But it’s not just a question of richer timbral combinations (and greater volume): the players stretch the improvisational aspect of Baroque continuo practice even further.

As Ferguson and Zeller-Townson put it, they “explode Bach’s bass line into a rainbow of colors,” so that these pieces seem to be emerging from a particularly inspired jam-in-progress that makes room for the players’ collective musical experiences and influences.

“Memory and quotation may function as a means to reflect upon contemporary artistic, cultural, social, and political phenomena,” observes Reiko Füting in a statement articulating his artistic credo.

In tanz.tanz—the U.S. premiere of which Miranda Cuckson gave in New York in 2010—both memory and quotation come into play. The piece is a mise en abyme of quotation around the act of mourning as memory. Füting, who came of age in the former East Germany, draws on Bach’s putative quotations of his own choral music within the fabric of the Chaconne in D minor that concludes the Partita No. 2.

In the process, he creates an entirely new composition.

The impulse came from the groundbreaking interpretation by the 20th-century German musicologist Helga Thoene of the Chaconne as a tombeau, a musical memorial for the composer’s beloved first wife, Maria Barbara Bach.

She died suddenly in 1720, the year Bach published the six sonatas and partitas for solo violin. (Thoene’s work famously

inspired the bestselling 2001 ECM recording Morimur.)

Thoene—the dedicatee of Füting’s piece— decoded a string of chorale tunes that she argues Bach hid in the Chaconne, tracing a “secret” path from raw grief through consolation to resigned acceptance.

In this interpretation, the chorale Bach used in his early Easter cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden frames this grieving process, while the appearance of light in the central, major-key section voices a Lutheran Christmas hymn.

Füting’s title, which means “dance.dance,” reveals still another layer of “quotation,” beyond music. He refers to being inspired

by Haruki Murakami’s parody mystery from 1988, Dance Dance Dance. The protagonist, a commercial writer, searches for meaning and connection. “Dance.

Don’t think. Dance,” one of Murakami’s characters encourages. “Dance your best, like your life depended on it. You gotta dance.”

Bach’s music for solo violin is the springboard for the Canadian composer Cassandra Miller’s About Bach— specifically, the Chaconne in D minor dating from the Köthen period that immediately preceded Bach’s move to Leipzig. This movement, a structure of 257 measures built out of a repeating harmonic sequence, encompasses such a vast emotional journey by itself that it has acquired an independent afterlife.

Miller, who resettled from British Columbia to London, has created new works by transcribing and recontextualizing a remarkable array of starting-points, from North American thrushes to the voice of Kurt Cobain. About Bach, another study in transformation, originated as a piece for solo viola that she subsequently expanded into a single string quartet movement spanning some 25 minutes, working in collaboration with Quatuor Bozzini.

Using her violist colleague Pemi Paull’s live recording of the Chaconne, Miller

isolated a short section from the midpoint, when Bach turns to D major, and transcribed it with special software she has developed that, she explains, allows her “to apprehend the exact rhythmic musicality of a performance, capturing as well various artifacts such as the viola’s upper partials as they change within each bow stroke.”

Miller overlays onto Bach’s phrase her own harmony, which “turns the phrase into a gently jaunty chorale,” for which her instruction to the players reads “gentle, but quick and crisp, like a soft-shoe jig (not at all ponderous).” As the violin line soars into the stratosphere, ethereal, Bach’s own grave music for solo violin recedes from memory. About Bach proceeds as “a constant meandering, a nondevelopmental piece in an extreme sense.”

—THOMAS MAY

This concert is approximately 70 minutes.

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Saturday, June 11, 2022 | 2:30pm Zalk Theater, Besant Hill School

OJAI Dusk: How to Fall Apart Keir GoGwilt violin | Jay Campbell cello | Julia Eichten movement director, dancer Yiannis Logothetis dancer | Matilda Sakamoto dancer Carolyn CHEN

How to Fall Apart World Premiere and AMOC* Commission How to Fall Apart is by Carolyn Chen in collaboration with Julia Eichten, Keir GoGwilt, Jay Campbell, Yiannis Logothetis, and Matilda Sakamoto.

Also thanks to Or Schraiber (dance) and Coleman Itzkoff (cello), who contributed to the creation of the piece.

This concert is made possible by the generous support of Stephan Farber and Sound Post Capital

There is no intermission during the concert.

ZALK THEATER, BESANT HILL SCHOOL 8585 OJAI SANTA PAULA ROAD

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Carolyn CHEN (b. 1983)

How to Fall Apart started as a conversation with Keir and Jay about musical freedom, listening to natural phenomena, and my efforts to re-wild the eroding slope of my home in Los Angeles. Reflecting on the process of de-paving, sheet-mulching, re-contouring, searching out plants that might survive our increasingly scorching summers — it seemed like pouring sweat into the hope of finding nature a way to come back to hold it all together. Over the next couple of years, a pandemic and a birth, I assembled a list of ways to fall apart, wrote a number of variations on the shape-note tune “Wondrous Love,” and constructed an outline of movement requests — which included games playing with listening, light, and everyday objects in accord with each thematic center, seeking opportunities for each person to work from areas of expertise and inexpertise. Our work together began with this score as a scaffolding, and the piece has emerged gradually through the imaginative contributions of each member of the creative team: Julia Eichten, Yiannis Logothetis, Matilda Sakamoto, Or Schraiber, Coleman Itzkoff, Jay Campbell, and Keir GoGwilt. Special thanks to Justin Decatur, Suzanne Thorpe, George Gwilt, and Dea Lou Schraiber.

—CAROLYN CHEN

Talking, Moving, Playing For Carolyn Chen, the act of making music allows her “to look into the inner lives of things.” Her artistic credo calls for working with sound as both “a physical phenomenon” and “a socially and historically embedded experience,” defamiliarizing and recontextualizing sources from everyday life as she “weaves musical dialogue from unexpected neighbors.” Along with a widely varied range of solo, chamber, and ensemble pieces, the Los Angeles-based Chen has written for the stage (including the chamber opera Hoods, a “mashup of Euripides’ Hekabe and Red Riding Hood”), installations and conceptual works, and a category she calls “music for people,” such as “an amoeba sunset play to Ravel’s Boléro at sunset on Sunset Boulevard” and “undercover actions” to be performed in supermarket settings.

How to Fall Apart was born of a process of collaboration between musicians and dancers. When AMOC*’s Keir GoGwilt asked Chen to write something for violin and cello as well as a pair of dancers, she recalls thinking at first about the intimacy of chamber music, of how we listen to it and how it stages a conversation between people: “How could that conversation between sound and movement be bridged?” Chen at first imagined a string quartet comprising violin and cello (for GoGwilt and fellow company member and cellist Jay Campbell) plus “two other people for whom moving would be their instrument instead of playing a physical string instrument.” As a formal process, the concept was to cross-connect the worlds of music and dance in a way that allows “dancers and musicians to work both within their areas of expertise and also a little bit outside.”

Storytelling and acts of translation also feature prominently in Chen’s work.

Since speaking is an “area of inexpertise” equally shared by musicians and dancers (“since it’s an everyday action that neither are professionally trained to do”), she developed a “talking script” including found texts that illustrate the phenomenon of falling apart in some of its countless manifestations. The script— some of it narrated live and other parts pre-recorded—whittles these down to 11 topics arranged in varied thematic categories. Scientific theories and observations are heard side-by-side with folk wisdom and examples from everyday life to explain the myriad ways of falling apart. Chen brainstormed this sequence of situations or topics: stargazing, the mytheme of the world turtle, early theories about the flat earth, erosion, the CONTINUED }}

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TALKING, MOVING, PLAYING

mechanical universe, the aging body, compost, the layering of croissants, global warming, Pluto and its demotion from planetary status, and the red shift of an expanding universe.

Cosmological theories involving the shape of the universe and how we operate in it, as well as how these have changed over time, provide a unifying theme to this textual layer. How to Fall Apart, Chen explains, also explores “how these various stories we tell ourselves come apart and then come together in different ways.” The awe-inspiring grandeur of the narrative of astrophysics, the human body falling as it ages, the sheeting that happens with erosion, how the food we eat is broken down into the components of compost— Chen allows all of these stories to cast a particular spell. She also represents the dialectic between falling apart and being put back together. Compost, for example, in turn “builds fungal networks and microbial universes” that sustain a new generation.

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Instead of being “accompanied” by the music, Chen says that the recited texts and stories are the accompaniment, “like a footnote to the music.” A key inspiration for the score is the simple tune “What Wondrous Love Is This,” a shape-note hymn that appealed to Chen because of the tradition of “a gathering of people who sing together but who don’t need to be experts in singing.” She adds that “it’s about life and death and the idea of wonder, which is thematically relevant.”

Her score presents a series of loose variations on the hymn, which is often difficult to recognize within the colorful gestural contexts of Chen’s music. At the outset, for example, Campbell plays harmonics that spell out the tune, but without its rhythmic profile. The cello’s deep bass, starting on a sustained low C, represents the sky through which the harmonics “shine,” as we hear stories about the experience of looking at the stars. For the final section, with its talk of “red shift” and “raisin bread,” Chen makes use of Doppler effects and spatial differentiation.

While collaborating with the musicians and dancers, Chen compiled a list of “prompts” for types of movement and physical gestures—another layer alongside the narration and music.

Her movement outline suggests remaining “at ease” for the opening section of stargazing, while, corresponding to the theme of turtles, Chen refers to the movements mouth and tongue make to pronounce a tongue twister about the price of a turtle compared to a chicken.

Chen and her colleagues remind us throughout that art itself enacts a process of taking apart and putting together again: the composer’s task, as suggested by the root componere (to put together, to arrange), here amplified by the energy of bodies in motion.

—THOMAS MAY

This concert is approximately 60 minutes.

BESANT HILL SCHOOL est. 1946

www.besanthill.org

DISCOVER

THE OF

POWER SMALL

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Saturday, June 11, 2022 | 4:30pm Zalk Theater, Besant Hill School

OJAI Dusk: The Cello Player The Cello Player World Premiere Created by Or Schraiber in collaboration with Yiannis Logothetis and Coleman Itzkoff Co-produced by AMOC* & Orsolina28 Bobbi Jene Smith dramaturgy | Victoria Bek costumes | Claire Cleary lighting design Jules Itzkoff furniture design and build Coleman Itzkoff cello | Yiannis Logothetis dancer | Or Schraiber dancer | Jesse Kovarsky actor Musical selections performed by Coleman Itzkoff: Giovanni SOLLIMA

Lamentatio for Solo Cello

Coleridge-Taylor PERKINSON

Calvary Ostinato from Lamentations: Black/Folk Song Suite for Solo Cello

György LIGETI

This concert is made possible by the generous support of Ruth Eliel and Bill Cooney

There is no intermission during the concert.

Please note that there will be some flashing lights as part of the performance.

ZALK THEATER, BESANT HILL SCHOOL 8585 OJAI SANTA PAULA ROAD

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Dialogo from Sonata for Solo Cello

Giovanni SOLLIMA (b. 1962) Lamentatio for Solo Cello (1998)

Coleridge-Taylor PERKINSON (1932-2004) Calvary Ostinato from Lamentations: Black/Folk Song Suite for Solo Cello (1973)

György LIGETI (1923-2006) Dialogo from Sonata for Solo Cello (1948-53)

“To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now.”

“Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order.”

—SAMUEL BECKETT

Two men wait on a stage. They each attempt to tell their tales, share their joys, their scars. They each lament their bygone lives.

A wandering kobzar appears in the distance…

The Cello Player is a work of dance-music-theater that was born out of the friendship and working relationship between its three creators: Or Schraiber, Yiannis Logothetis, and Coleman Itzkoff.

—COLEMAN ITZKOFF

The Bard’s Laments The Cello Player is a spinoff of Open Rehearsal, AMOC*’s new dance-theater work directed by Bobbi Jene Smith (which receives a second performance on Sunday). Both works in turn have their roots in Broken Theater, a dance film that Smith and her fellow artists created during the height of the pandemic (see p. 50 for more background).

“At the time, I was especially interested in the Theater of the Absurd of the 1950s and ’60s in France, especially as found in the works of Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco,” he recalls. “The way Beckett breaks the paradigm of linear narrative and the depth of his characters in Waiting for Godot but also in Endgame were a big inspiration.”

The initial idea for The Cello Player, explains choreographer and dancer Or Schraiber, emerged when he was preparing a duet for himself and dancer Yiannis Logothetis during the process of creating Broken Theater. Schraiber realized there was enough potential to expand this male duet into an independent dance theater piece.

Schraiber tapped into the energy that has developed between himself and Logothetis over their years of collaboration. He invited cellist Coleman Itzkoff, another close colleague who is a co-founding member of AMOC*, to participate and offer suggestions for the musical dimension. The trio began workshopping the new piece during a residency last year in Italy. Although

Schraiber’s initial impulse was to think about how the theatrical sources that inspired him might be represented as dance, The Cello Player eventually went “in a completely different direction,” according to Itzkoff.

The result is a piece about the indefinable but mysterious connection between three characters “in their attempt to coexist in different ways or within different physical or sonic manifestations,” says Schraiber. The roles/personae performed

by Schraiber and Logothetis, he adds, are “difficult to separate. We are almost the same character in two different bodies: like ancient friends, or like the angels in Wim Wenders’s film Wings of Desire, two souls contemplating the world.” Itzkoff, on the other hand, “suddenly injects a completely different vibe with his music.”

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THE BARD’S LAMENTS

During the initial, amorphous stages of The Cello Player, Itzkoff tried out numerous pieces of music with Schraiber and Logothetis. One day, while he was practicing Giovanni Sollima’s Lamentatio, his colleagues immediately took notice.

“They were incredibly excited by it,” he recalls. “So with that we found the first musical selection of the piece.”

A native of Sicily, Sollima is a composer and cellist who has collaborated with Patti Smith and is especially acclaimed for the hypnotic power of his improvisations.

Itzkoff first met him in 2016 during the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival in Los Angeles and describes Sollima as “a Baroque rock star living in the 21st century.”

Lamentatio demands an electrifying range of playing styles, from plaintive chant to aggressively percussive gestures, with the player adding wordless, at times almost feral, vocalizations.

The American composer, conductor, pianist, and educator Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (his first name pays homage to the composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor) moved effortlessly between classical, jazz, and popular idioms. He was among the co-founders of the Symphony of the New World, established in 1965 as the first racially integrated orchestra in the United States. Perkinson composed Lamentations eight years later for Ronald Lipscomb, who performed with the new orchestra. He also named this four-movement solo suite Black/Folk Song Suite, drawing on sources from African American musical tradition.

Calvary Ostinato, the third movement, adapts the spiritual about the crucifixion of Jesus, “Surely He Died on Calvary,” into a repeated pattern and is played entirely pizzicato.

György Ligeti was still a student in Budapest when he wrote a single

movement for solo cello, Dialogo.

His inspiration was a fellow student to whom he could confess his love only through music, but she never played it; five years later, he complemented Dialogo with a second movement to create the Cello Sonata. Because the Communist authorities refused permission to publish or even perform the Sonata, it fell into oblivion for decades. Ligeti was denied access to modern musical developments while he was still behind the Iron Curtain. With its intimation of folk song character, Dialogo shows the influence of Zoltán Kodály, one of his teachers. The paradoxical title of a solo instrument engaging in a “dialogue” gains fresh meaning in the context of The Cello Player.

“I’m a minstrel or bard or kobzar who travels with his cello and sings these laments,” says Itzkoff. “All three of them have an ancient quality, giving an impression of having always existed.”

—THOMAS MAY

This concert is approximately 60 minutes.

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L.A. DANCE PROJECT

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A NEW DANCE BY BENJAMIN MILLEPIED

Inspired by composer Andy Akiho’s recently released “Seven Pillars,” Millepied presents an abstract piece showcasing the company’s excellent artists in a display of dancing that is both intimate and virtuosic.

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Saturday, June 11, 2022 | 8:00pm Libbey Bowl

Little Jimmy + Family Dinner Julia Bullock soprano | Anthony Roth Costanzo countertenor | Paul Appleby tenor | Davóne Tines bass-baritone Emi Ferguson flute | Gleb Kanasevich clarinet | Clay Zeller-Townson bassoon | Miranda Cuckson violin Keir GoGwilt violin | Carrie Frey viola | Coleman Itzkoff cello | Doug Balliett double bass | Jonny Allen percussion Mari Yoshinaga percussion | Conor Hanick piano Matthew Aucoin conductor

Andrew McINTOSH

Little Jimmy Conor Hanick piano | Matthew Aucoin piano Jonny Allen percussion | Mari Yoshinaga percussion INTERMISSION

Matthew AUCOIN

Deep Water Trawling from The No One’s Rose Julia Bullock soprano | Anthony Roth Costanzo countertenor Paul Appleby tenor | Davóne Tines bass-baritone | Emi Ferguson flute Gleb Kanasevich clarinet | Clay Zeller-Townson bassoon Miranda Cuckson violin | Keir GoGwilt violin | Carrie Frey viola Coleman Itzkoff cello | Doug Balliett double bass Jonny Allen percussion | Mari Yoshinaga percussion | Conor Hanick piano

This concert is made possible with the generous support of Nancy and Barry Sanders

Matthew Aucoin conductor Family Dinner is commissioned by the Ojai Music Festival, with the generous support of Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting

Matthew AUCOIN

Family Dinner World Premiere Julia Bullock soprano | Paul Appleby tenor | Davóne Tines bass-baritone Emi Ferguson flute | Gleb Kanasevich clarinet | Miranda Cuckson violin Keir GoGwilt violin | Carrie Frey viola | Coleman Itzkoff cello Doug Balliett double bass | Jonny Allen percussion Mari Yoshinaga percussion | Conor Hanick piano Matthew Aucoin conductor

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Andrew McINTOSH (b. 1985) Little Jimmy (2020)

Matthew AUCOIN (b. 1990) Deep Water Trawling from The No One’s Rose (2021) Family Dinner (2022)

Little Jimmy Often, when I think of Southern California, I think of Andrew McIntosh’s music. He is a true desert composer: Events within Andrew’s music unfold in the mysterious, unpredictable way that they do in a desert ecosystem. At first encounter, this music may seem sparse, spiky, and strange, as deserts often do, but there’s a lot of life hidden away, just out of view — inside a cactus, or far up in the sky, or buried in the ground. This is music that requires a certain patience, and a quietness of mind — for performers and listeners alike.

Little Jimmy, the piece we’re playing at Ojai, is scored for two pianists and two percussionists, and Andrew is especially good at wringing the most astonishing, spark- or fire-like sounds out of percussion instruments. (Pianos, in Andrew’s hands, are percussion instruments too.) There are flinty, staccato passages, as one might expect from a piece with this instrumentation, but there are also extended sections full of searingly powerful long notes, produced by all four performers bowing various instruments. These sections speak with a rib-shaking, planetary power.

—MATTHEW AUCOIN

Family Dinner This world-premiere Ojai Festival commission by AMOC* co-founder Matthew Aucoin is, in the composer’s words, “both a specific piece and a new form, one whose contents are likely to change with each performance.” A cycle of mini-concertos featuring many of AMOC*’s artists, Family Dinner aims to capture the raucous, joyful energy of a multi-course dinner with beloved friends. The work’s music ranges from introspective to riotously dancelike; it is also punctuated by spoken “toasts” composed by writers and thinkers who are collaborators of AMOC*’s artists

Bon Appétit The courses comprising AMOC*’s feast of a program tonight underscore the inherent flexibility and collaborative spirit that are intrinsic to the company’s identity. Over the span of the 2022 Ojai Music Festival, audiences have been experiencing AMOC* in ever-changing constellations of singers, instrumentalists, dancers, actors, and spoken-word artists. This evening’s menu juxtaposes an unusual quartet formation of pianists and percussionists with new music by cofounder Matthew Aucoin featuring nearly the entire company.

The composer, violinist, and violist Andrew McIntosh has been living and teaching in Southern California for some years — “one of the best-kept secrets” in the new music scene here, according to Aucoin. McIntosh shares with AMOC* a simultaneous attraction to experimentalism and early music as a performer: He is a member of the Los Angeles–based contemporary music ensemble Wild Up and also plays Baroque violin.

McIntosh was among the six composers who contributed to Hopscotch, the “mobile opera in 24 cars” produced by The Industry and director Yuval Sharon around various Los Angeles neighborhoods in 2015. Along with another opera (Bonnie and Clyde), he has composed solo and chamber works and pieces for such unusual ensembles as a group of 33 violins with only E and A strings (the difference between one and two). Little

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BON APPÉTIT

Jimmy dates from 2020 and is named after a backpacking campsite on Mt. Islip in the Angeles National Forest. The world premiere was given last August at the TIME:SPANS Festival in New York City.

Little Jimmy combines abstraction with sounds of California nature captured on field recordings taken on April 23, 2020, at or near the campsite in the San Gabriel Mountains. “At the time, the forest was under several feet of snow, just beginning to melt and emerge from winter conditions,” writes McIntosh. The recordings appear in the second and sixth movements of the six-movement work, which are titled Positive/Negative 1 (I); Little Jimmy at the End of Winter (II); Positive/Negative 2 (III); Heart (IV); Positive/Negative 3 (V); and Little Jimmy, Half an Hour Later, or, there is a place within you that has never been wounded (VI).

The Little Jimmy campsite has been closed since the Bobcat Fire devastated the area in late August 2020. McIntosh

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had not intended to address the issues of climate change or wildfires when he recorded the natural sounds he encountered in April to use in his work-inprogress. But the Bobcat Fire burned the very trees that had been preserved on the recordings.

Little Jimmy is no mere evocation of an atmosphere or sound world; it invites us into the space McIntosh has designed through the interplay of two pianists and two percussionists playing an assortment of tuned and untuned instruments. The pianists also use piano bows made of rosined fishing line, plus sandpaper blocks, stones, and a small glass. With the added layer of the field recordings, McIntosh introduces a haunting reminder of what has been lost that seems to reverse the proverbial thought experiment: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” The sounds have stopped existing in the forest as a result of the fire, yet they continue to reverberate in ways that move us in

the new context created by McIntosh’s composition.

It was also last August that AMOC*’s largest collaborative project to date, The No One’s Rose, received its premiere (as part of a commission by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale with Stanford Live). A characteristically undefinable hybrid of opera, dance, poetry, and theater directed

by Zack Winokur and choregraphed by Bobbi Jene Smith, it features a score by Matthew Aucoin in which allusions are incorporated ranging across a spectrum from Orlando di Lasso and J.S. Bach to Sam Cooke and Paul Simon. The impetus behind The No One’s Rose was to fashion a contemporary response to the cantatas of Bach by exploring themes of traumatic loss, uncertainty, and survival that weave together company members’ personal stories with the words of various poets such as Paul Celan, the source of the title — an artist “who witnessed the unbearable and translated it into experience again,” as Aucoin puts it.

Another key presence is the Pulitzer Prize–winning American poet Jorie Graham, one of Aucoin’s mentors when he studied poetry as an undergraduate at Harvard. (Aucoin has remarked that her poetry workshops taught him “as much about music as any musician.”) Deep Water Trawling, published in Graham’s 2017 collection Fast, also addresses the issue of humanity’s impact on nature and the climate, presenting the perspective of the ocean from beneath in response to the problematic practice of fishing with a trawl net.

Aucoin’s fascination with the sounds of early music is a kind of corollary of the lost sounds of the trees in Little Jimmy — survivors of the past that absorb new meanings in a contemporary context. He has described the Baroque contrabassoon that he uses in his setting of the text as “a terrifying, deep-sea monster.”

The Baroque era had its Tafelmusik to be played at feasts and banquets. Family Dinner, fresh out of the oven, is inspired by the mood of the large group dinners the members of AMOC* customarily enjoy together during their residencies in August, when they rehearse together at an old ballet camp in Stamford, Vermont.

A sense of collective ownership and shared fluency in each other’s disciplines are central to AMOC*’s philosophy.

Family Dinner puts this ideal into practice, realizing through performance the shared group spirit of these occasions — which, Aucoin points out, tend to be “sprawling, messy, celebratory.”

The basic formal idea is straightforward enough: Aucoin has written a series of “mini-concertos” to highlight AMOC* members. These are linked together through spoken toasts (prefaced by musical “toast calls”) that Aucoin

commissioned from like-minded associates, writers, and thinkers, from the playwright Sarah Ruhl (author of Eurydice, which she adapted into a libretto for Aucoin’s operatic setting) to the poet Arthur Sze. They were given a broad brief: “Write a toast to someone or something you love and are grateful for or a call to action.”

Beginning with an ensemble “summons” (“We call you to our table”), the musical component of Family Dinner consists, in general, of three types of movements, explains Aucoin: “dialogue movements, songful outpourings, and raucous dances.

These are all musical embodiments of things that happen over dinner, from rapid-fire arguments to drunken confessions.” Poetry, music, dance, and friendship — what could be a finer recipe?

—THOMAS MAY

This concert is approximately 108 minutes.

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Sunday, June 12, 2022 | 9:00am Chaparral Auditorium

Free Community Event Doug Balliett double bass | Miranda Cuckson violin | Emi Ferguson flute Davóne Tines bass-baritone | Seth Parker Woods cello

This concert made possible by the generous support of Esther Wachtell

CHAPARRAL AUDITORIUM 414 EAST OJAI AVENUE, OJAI

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Julius EASTMAN

Our Father

EASTMAN

Buddha

Julius EASTMAN (1940-90) Our Father (1989) Buddha (1984)

EASTMAN IN L.A. The history of new music in Los Angeles is rich with unexpected memories and discoveries. Those with long memories will remember a hugely ambitious (though short-lived) Contempo series led by Zubin Mehta at the Los Angeles Philharmonic which took place in the early 1970s at the unlikely setting of the Ahmanson Theater.

These wide-ranging programs spanned everything from Stravinsky to Frank Zappa (in a raucously controversial performance of his 200 Motels at a UCLA venue!). The programs also introduced Los Angeles audience to the astonishing artistry of Julius Eastman over two concerts in May 1971. At the first, Eastman was the soloist in Hans Werner Henze’s Essay on Pigs. The late Martin Bernheimer, writing in the Los Angeles Times, observed that

the evening “belonged, emphatically and shamelessly, to a singer named Julius Eastman . . . Mehta introduced Eastman to his auditors as ‘one of the finest singing musicians I have ever heard or worked with’ . . . Eastman is, quite simply a young man who can do anything with his voice – sing in a healthy baritone, croak in altitudinous or subterranean ‘Sprechgesang,’ grunt, whoop, slide, croon, and declaim thunderously. And he can do it dramatically, in impeccable rhythm, with crystalline diction . . . “ A few nights later, Eastman returned to be the central protagonist in Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King, again with Mehta and members of the Philharmonic. Bernheimer reported that “Davies makes outrageous demands

on his herd, both vocal and instrumental.

Julius Eastman met those demands with sovereign skill . . . “ Happily, Los Angeles has been at the forefront of an Eastman revival in recent years. It was at a Monday Evening Concert in 2017 that Davóne Tines first memorably performed Eastman’s Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan D’Arc as part of an all-Eastman program. And the brilliantly enterprising Wild Up has recorded Eastman’s Femenine as the first release in a multi-volume anthology dedicated to the composer.

—ARA GUZELIMIAN

This concert is approximately 29 minutes.

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Sunday, June 12, 2022 | 10:00am Libbey Bowl

The Book of Sounds Hans OTTE

The Book of Sounds Conor Hanick piano

The concert is dedicated to the memory of Olin Barrett with the generous support of Michele Brustin .

There is no intermission during the concert.

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Hans OTTE (1926-2007) The Book of Sounds (Das Buch der Klänge): Parts I-XII (1979-82)

On the piano, the distance between C major (c-e-g) and E minor (e-g-b) is a matter of the keyboard’s smallest incremental distance: a half step, the movement of one note (c) to its closest lower note (b). In our ears, however — to say nothing of our hearts — the distance between C major and E minor is infinite; defined only by the depth of our ability, our need, to hear what worlds might exists when the space between notes is freed.

—CONOR HANICK

The Sound Behind the Sounds As Hans Otte was coming of age in postwar Germany, the musical avantgarde, whose epicenter was in U.S.occupied Darmstadt, declared a new beginning. Sometimes known as Stunde null, or the “zero hour,” this turning point was intended to mark an abrupt break from history and its burdens. A radical alienation from the basic familiarity of tonal language resulted, and this is part of the context against which Otte emerged with his own musical philosophy. In his introduction to The Book of Sounds, for example, he clarifies one of the work’s aims thus: “It rediscovers a world of consonant experience which could only now be written because of a totally changed consciousness of sounds on earth.” In other words, that context of “zero hour” alienation is what paved the way toward Otte’s “rediscovery” of a musical language in which far more than choices of style seems to be at stake.

“It’s no wonder that this was coming out of the explosive changes in postwar music and hyper-controlled serialism and the like,” explains AMOC*’s Conor

Hanick. The Book of Sounds “takes all of those shackles and strictures of form and says no to them but lets the music do a completely different thing.”

Otte, who began as a prodigy on piano and organ, keenly followed American developments. He won a grant to Yale (where he studied composition under Paul Hindemith, as well as organ) and, when he was back in Germany, helped disseminate the ideas of John Cage and the early exponents of American Minimalism, including Terry Riley and La Monte Young, as well as the young Steve Reich. His position at Radio Bremen, where he served as music director from 1959 to 1984, gave Otte an influential platform to introduce these new trends from the United States.

He also founded two important festivals, one devoted to early music and the other to contemporary composers, including such leading German avant-gardists as Karlheinz Stockhausen. Otte meanwhile composed prolifically, producing a catalogue that includes more than 100 compositions, from works for solo piano to orchestral and choral scores. He also

created numerous multimedia installations and was active in projects involving theater and the visual arts.

The Book of Sounds from 1979-82 might be seen as taking an alternative “zero hour” approach. It invites fresh questioning of what kind of exchange actually happens when we interact with music. While traces of Otte’s deep knowledge of the piano repertoire as a performer abound — echoes ranging from Chopin, Debussy, and Satie to Messiaen — these dozen pieces foreground the sensory experience of sound color from an astonishingly original perspective, reveling in the piano’s wondrous timbral palette and resonance.

At the same time, the materiality of sound is transformed into a vehicle for liberation from the material world. Otte articulates this quasi-mystical aspect, in his introduction to The Book of Sounds, when he asserts that the work “rediscovers the listener as a partner of sound and silence, who in the quest for his or her world, wishes for once to be totally at one with sound.”

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THE SOUND BEHIND THE SOUNDS

Otte’s interest in American composers who looked to the spiritual traditions of the East for inspiration — particularly John Cage — left a mark on his own quest for musical truth. Indeed, the cover of the first edition of The Book of Sounds reinforces Otte’s fascination with Zen Buddhism (which became even more pronounced in his Book of Hours from the 1990s): a stylized, pseudo-Japanese calligraphy illustrates the numbers 1-12.

The scoring of the 12-part cycle even dispenses with bar lines, further indicating a music that seeks to remove itself from the everyday divisions of temporality.

The Zen-like paradoxes this involves are conducive to meditation; many listeners have even found Otte’s music, through its

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re-sensitization of the process of listening itself, to have a healing power.

The deceptive simplicity of Otte’s language — with its use of repetition and intense focus on harmonies and gestures that seem, as we first hear them, “obvious” — sets us up for startling revelations along the arc of the entire cycle. Each of the 12 pieces inhabits a world unto itself.

At the same time, explains Hanick, the cycle seems to become “more and more chromatic as it moves toward the center, and then the chromaticism dissipates as it proceeds toward the conclusion.”

At the center, in Part VI, the harmonies become implicit: Otte presents an almost entirely single line of chromatic melody

that unfolds in close intervals in the treble.

Part VIII, by contrast, comprises a parade of dense chords, juxtaposing extremes of volume. By the conclusion, each harmony radiates with the beauty of a rare gem.

Both spareness and lush color, silence and dramatic exclamation, coexist as essential coordinates of the universe mapped out

by The Book of Sounds. As Otte writes: “The Book of Sounds rediscovers playing as the possibility of experiencing oneself in sound, of becoming at one in time and space with all the sounds around one.”

—THOMAS MAY

This concert is approximately 65 minutes.

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Sunday, June 12, 2022 | 12:00pm Libbey Park Gazebo

Free Community Event Julia Eichten and Bret Easterling dance and choreography EICHTERLING

Dance in the Park World Premiere Musical selections include The Danube Waves by Ion Ivanovici (performed by Budapest Strauss Ensemble) and an original composition by Juniper x Eichterling

a celebratory happening of tenderness, togetherness, and fierce joy phases, ages, and geographies an evolution of tectonic dreams recording and responding in time a glitch from the 6th dimension tempo of thirty three – Julia Eichten & Bret Easterling This concert made possible by the generous support of Ojai Festival Women’s Committee

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Sunday, June 12, 2022 | 2:30pm Greenberg Center, Ojai Valley School

Open Rehearsal (repeat performance) Open Rehearsal World Premiere and AMOC* commission Directed by Bobbi Jene Smith Choreographed and performed by Paul Appleby, Julia Bullock, Julia Eichten, Vinson Fraley, Jonathan Fredrickson, Keir GoGwilt, Conor Hanick, Coleman Itzkoff, Jesse Kovarsky, Yiannis Logothetis, Or Schraiber, Bobbi Jene Smith, and Stephanie Troyak MUSICAL SELECTIONS:

This concert is made possible with the generous support of Smith-Hobson Foundation

There is no intermission during the concert.

See page 51 for program notes.

Giovanni SOLLIMA

Lamentatio for Solo Cello

Franz SCHUBERT

Ständchen

Connie CONVERSE

One by One (recorded 1954; new arrangement 2017 by Jeremy SISKIND)

J.S. BACH

Gigue from Suite No. 2 in D minor for Solo Cello

Pete SEEGER

One Grain of Sand

Monique Andrée SERF (“Barbara”) La Solitude BACH

Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D Minor for Solo Violin

Jacques BREL

Ces Gens-là

Frédéric CHOPIN

Prelude in E minor, Op. 28, no. 4

HILDEGARD OF BINGEN

“O rubor sanguinis” for the Feast of St. Ursula, Antiphon D 167r, R 471vb

Johnny CHANG

Hildegard Resonances

GREENBERG CENTER, OJAI VALLEY SCHOOL 723 EL PASEO ROAD, OJAI

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Sunday, June 12, 2022 | 4:00pm Libbey Park Gazebo

Free Community Event Julia Bullock soprano | Paul Appleby tenor | Davóne Tines bass-baritone | Emi Ferguson flute Keir GoGwilt violin | Jonny Allen percussion | Matthew Aucoin piano Ruckus: Coleman Itzkoff cello | Doug Balliett double bass | Clay Zeller-Townson bassoon Joshua Stauffer lute | Stephen Stubbs theorbo | Elliot Figg harpsichord Ojai Festival Children’s Choir, Emily Redman Hall choir conductor Doug BALLIETT

Rome Is Falling World Premiere and AMOC* Commission libretto also by the composer

The 3rd-Century Crisis Monks in the Desert The Goths Cross the Border Alaric vs. Honorius Monks Behaving Badly Vandals, Huns, and The Fall This concert is made possible by the generous support of E.J. Harrison and Sons and Rotary Club of Ojai

There is no intermission during the concert.

Special thanks to Laura Walter and Julija Zonic for their help in putting all this together.

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Doug BALLIETT (b. 1982) Rome Is Falling (2022)

Rome was one of the great civilizations of the world, yet, like all empires, it fell. Why, and how? The story is one of the most interesting in human history. It involves love, betrayal, politics, immigration, religion, climate, pandemic, xenophobia, and luck — in short, everything human, and everything we face today. This high-energy piece presents scenes from late Roman history through story, song, and interaction, and features singers and instrumentalists from AMOC*, as well as a choir of local young people.

—DOUG BALLIETT

Free Fallin’ Every day a new crisis in the headlines.

Fear-mongering politicians who will stop at nothing to gain power, sowing suspicion and division — all while the real crises with the climate and healthcare go ignored. Rumors of civil war. With his brand-new opera Rome Is Falling, AMOC* composer and performer Doug Balliett tells an exciting story that sounds strangely familiar. What exactly happened to the vast Roman Empire is still debated among scholars, but the various scenarios that led to its ultimate fate involve the same kinds of ambition, intriguing (and horrifying) personalities, outrageous behavior, and bad-luck timing that keep us glued to series like Game of Thrones or Ozark.

The most famous attempt to make sense of this story came from the 18th-century historian Sir Edward Gibbon, whose epic The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire took a dozen years to publish in full. Balliett launches his opera — for which he wrote both words and music — with the crisis of leadership in the third century of the common era, following the peak of the Roman Empire

that Gibbon famously described at the beginning of his history.

When asked to create a community event that could be performed outside on an Ojai afternoon, Balliett recalls settling on the topic of ancient Rome first and foremost because “it’s such an interesting story to tell. There are so many fascinating little corners to it. I’d been reading Roman history from many different angles and chose the scenes that interest me the most, constantly asking, ‘Was this the moment that Rome fell? What really led to that outcome?’ So the story extends over centuries.”

Balliett zeroed in on six turning points or episodes in this complicated saga that he found especially suitable to set to music. “If you know the history of the fall of Rome, then you’ll really love the story portion of it,” he says. “But that’s not necessary to enjoy the piece.”

AMOC* is especially drawn to innovative ways of musical storytelling and theatrical presentation. Sometimes that means

finding inspiration from the early years of opera itself, when the art was first trying to figure out what it could do. The company’s singers and instrumentalists are joined by Ruckus, an associated early music ensemble that usually plays period instruments (Balliett and several of his colleagues are members of both), as well as the Ojai Festival Children’s Choir.

Balliett has experimented with musical narrative in many different formats, such as Gawain and the Green Knight (2019), based on one of the most famous tales from the court of King Arthur. His approach is to invite the audience to feel they are participating in the story. In the case of Rome Is Falling, that feeling becomes all the stronger thanks to the relevance of the story to today. “It’s got everything: excess and hope and love and death — everything you would want in an opera, as well as a lot of food for thought.”

—THOMAS MAY

This concert is approximately 45 minutes.

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Sunday, June 12, 2022 | 5:30pm Libbey Bowl Festival Finale AMOC* | Ruckus | Friends ACT I: Ruckus & AMOC* Celeste ORAM

A Tuning Tune Ruckus

Girolamo FRESCOBALDI

Canzoni a due Bassi Coleman Itzkoff cello | Doug Balliett double bass | Ruckus

Sigismondo D’INDIA

Infelice Didone Text by the composer | Anthony Roth Costanzo countertenor | Ruckus

Celeste ORAM

Attuning Tune Ruckus

Antonio VIVALDI

Preludio from Sonata VI in B-flat major for Cello, RV46 Coleman Itzkoff cello | Ruckus

Qual per ignoto calle, RV 677 Anthony Roth Costanzo countertenor | Ruckus Philip GLASS (arr. Michael RIESMAN) This concert is made possible by the generous support of Kathleen and Jerry Eberhardt

Liquid Days Text by David Byrne

The Encounter from 1000 Airplanes on the Roof Anthony Roth Costanzo countertenor | Emi Ferguson flute Gleb Kanasevich clarinet | Miranda Cuckson violin | Keir GoGwilt violin Carrie Frey viola | Coleman Itzkoff cello | Doug Balliett double bass Elliot Figg harpsichord | Jonny Allen percussion | Mari Yoshinaga percussion Matthew Aucoin conductor ACT II: AMOC* John CAGE

She is Asleep Julia Bullock soprano | Conor Hanick piano

Nina SIMONE

Revolution Four Women Julia Bullock soprano | Conor Hanick piano

Franz SCHUBERT

Ständchen (excerpt from Open Rehearsal) Bobbi Jene Smith director | Open Rehearsal company

Julius EASTMAN

Stay On It AMOC* Full Festival Company

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Celeste ORAM (b. 1990) A Tuning Tune (2022) Girolamo FRESCOBALDI (1583-1643) Canzoni a due Bassi (1628) Sigismondo D’INDIA (c. 1582-1629) Infelice Didone (1623) Celeste ORAM (b. 1990) Attuning Tune (2022)

Antonio VIVALDI (1678-1741) Preludio from Sonata VI in B-flat major for Cello, RV 46 (c. 1720-30) Qual per ignoto calle, RV 677 (c. 1730-32) Philip GLASS (b. 1937) Liquid Days (1985) The Encounter from 1000 Airplanes on the Roof (1989) Celeste ORAM (b. 1990) Attuning Tune (2022)

John CAGE (1912-1992) She is Asleep (1943) Nina SIMONE (1933-2003) Revolution (1969) Four Women (1966) Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Ständchen (1828) Julius EASTMAN (1940-90) Stay On It (1973)

Imaginary Opera This festival celebrating the interdisciplinary creative spirit that defines AMOC* culminates in a wildly varied program. Call it an opera — the topic being a revisionist history of the art interlaced with a vision of its future.

For the original impetus behind the “American Modern Opera Company” was to radically rethink the potential of opera as a collective “work” (the root meaning of the word): a gathering of the arts into a larger whole that feeds off the synergy of multiple disciplines sharing space.

Playing the role of an overture is brandnew music by Celeste Oram. She wrote A Tuning Tune and Attuning Tune for the period instrument ensemble Ruckus, imagining these pieces as “preludes to a Baroque program” and at the same time as “opportunities for the ensemble to really tune their instruments (something a Baroque ensemble spends great time and care on).”

Oram explains: “These tunes center around a short, sing-songy text I composed, which reflects on some of the more moral and metaphysical

concepts that for centuries have been attached to musical intonation and the act of ‘playing in tune.’ In particular, some of the language references William Walker’s Southern Harmony, an important hymn book in the American shape note repertory (which Ruckus is also deeply engaged with).”

There is still much to learn from the rich ferment of possibilities that characterized the transition from late Renaissance to Baroque, out of which opera itself arose.

Just when opera was blossoming in his native Italy, Girolamo Frescobaldi stands out as the first major composer in Europe to focus primarily on instrumental music.

Though derived from the vocal tradition of the chanson associated with love songs, the canzone evolved into a genre for instruments alone (a predecessor of the sonata). Frescobaldi’s contrapuntal invention influenced many successors, including J.S. Bach.

In contrast, the Sicilian Sigismondo d’India became a leading composer of secular vocal music during this time — an era of

sweeping change from earlier polyphonic styles of composition that dominated.

D’India bridged and blended generational differences. The intensity of his dramatic sensibility invites comparisons with his (and Frescobaldi’s) older contemporary Monteverdi. D’India composed no operas per se but produced a prolific output of shorter forms and varieties of song, including madrigals and character scenes that resemble miniature operas. One of these scenes, Infelice Didone, depicts the lamenting Dido in her final moments — an archetypal operatic scene. Abandoned

by Aeneas, she reacts to the betrayal by stabbing herself with his sword and having her body burnt on a pyre. D’India’s word painting (to his own text) stunningly captures the conflicting emotions raging within Dido and remains overwhelming almost 400 years after it was written.

Flourishing a century later, the Venetian Antonio Vivaldi combined expertise in instrumental and vocal music. We hear examples of both, starting with the slow prelude from a sonata for cello and

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IMAGINARY OPERA

continuo that belongs to a series of some ten such works Vivaldi composed relatively late in his career. He produced vast quantities of vocal music as well, spanning sacred and secular genres. Vivaldi had a stint running one of Venice’s opera houses and claimed to have written 94 operas (only around 50 survive). Qual per ignoto calle (“Through Unknown Streets”) is a solo vocal chamber cantata, which Ruckus views as a descendant of the kind of scene D’India wrote in Infelice Didone.

Comprising two pairs of recitatives and arias, Vivaldi’s cantata uses storm imagery to figure the predicament of a person in the throes of unrequited love. The lover is compared to a pilgrim who hopes to survive the stormy night and greet the dawn (an image for being accepted by the beloved).

Anthony Roth Costanzo’s 2018 album ARC: Glass/Handel, for which he recorded the two songs in the Philip Glass set, is part of a larger, ongoing project that explores cross-connections between the Baroque and Minimalism and blends music, dance, live painting, and fashion. Like his fellow AMOC* colleagues, Costanzo moves effortlessly between early music and contemporary composers. His portrayal of the title figure in Glass’s 1983 opera Akhnaten channels something of the strange, surreal beauty that Baroque opera can evoke.

Liquid Days is from the cycle of six songs Glass wrote for the 1986 album Liquid Days, which brought his music to a more widespread audience and featured his own Philip Glass Ensemble (with a cover

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photo by Robert Mapplethorpe). David Byrne wrote the lyrics for the title track and its sequel (Open the Kingdom). In 1000 Airplanes on the Roof from 1988, Glass collaborated with the playwright David Henry Hwang to create a “science fiction music drama” using holographic set projections. A single character (“M”) reflects on his apparent abduction by extra-terrestrial creatures. Though wordless, the vocalist’s soaring line in The Encounter expresses awe (or is it joy, or fear?) in response to the ambiguous experience.

John Cage also uses a language of wordless vocalise in She is Asleep, a piece from 1943, soon after he had moved to New York City. This movement for soprano and prepared piano was envisioned as part of an unfinished suite including a movement for percussion quartet (12 tom-toms) and one for prepared piano. Although an abstract Cageian theory of proportions and accents informs the piece’s detailed structure, the music seems to tap into primordial feelings.

Filtered through the turmoil of the 1960s, the Nina Simone set offers songs that have the intensity of arias. Simone’s 1969 album of covers, To Love Somebody, includes Revolution, which is more complex than a “cover song” — a two-part response to The Beatles’ provocative song from the revolutionary year of 1968. “It’s about barriers being broken down, and they sure as hell need getting rid of,” Simone said.

“We need a revolution to sort it all out and get back to God.” Four Women from the

1966 album Wild Is the Wind is a bold (and often misinterpreted) reflection on the stereotyping of Black women in American society.

An excerpt from the new dance theater work Open Rehearsal by Bobbi Jene Smith and colleagues, Ständchen (“Serenade”) unfolds to Franz Schubert’s haunting song from his final collection, which was published posthumously as Swan Song. Schubert captures the bittersweet moment of expectation, aware that the promise of love might turn out to be an illusion.

The grand ensemble finale is among the glories of opera. The music of Julius Eastman opened the 2022 Festival with a solo summons, and now the entire collective joins together to realize his message of perseverance and make it resound — we need it more than ever now.

—THOMAS MAY

This concert is approximately 90 minutes.

Thank you for joining us on another great music adventure!

We can’t wait to see you for the Ojai Music Festival, June 8-11, 2023 with Music Director Rhiannon Giddens.

OjaiFestival.org | 805 646 2053

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Ensemble Profiles AMOC* (AMERICAN MODERN OPERA COMPANY) AMOC* is the Ojai Music Festival’s 2022 Music Director, only the first explicitly interdisciplinary company, to hold that position. Founded in 2017

by Matthew Aucoin and Zack Winokur, AMOC*’s mission is to build and share a body of collaborative work. As a group of dancers, singers, musicians, writers, directors, composers, choreographers, and producers united by a core set of values, AMOC* artists pool their resources to create new pathways that connect creators and audiences in surprising and visceral ways.

Current and past projects include The No One’s Rose, a devised music-theater-dance piece featuring new music by Aucoin, directed by Winokur with choreography by Bobbi Jene Smith; Eastman, a multi-dimensional performance piece contending with the life and work of Julius Eastman; Winokur’s production of Hans Werner Henze’s El Cimarrón, which has been performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Repertory Theater; a new arrangement of John Adams’s El Niño, premiered at The Met Cloisters as part of Julia Bullock’s season-long residency at the Met Museum; Davóne Tines’s and Winokur’s Were You There, a meditation on Black lives lost in recent years to police violence; and Bobbi Jene Smith and Keir GoGwilt’s dance/music works With Care and A Study on Effort. Conor Hanick’s performance of Cage, Winokur’s production of John Cage’s music for prepared piano, was cited as the best recital of the year by The New York Times in 2018 and The Boston Globe in 2019.

In 2017 AMOC* created the Run AMOC*! Festival at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the company has curated and performed that festival annually for the past three years. Past engagements also include the Big Ears Festival, the Caramoor Festival, National Sawdust, The Clark Art Institute, and the San Diego Symphony.

The company has also been in residence at the Park Avenue Armory and Harvard University.

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AMOC*

AMOC* BOARD OF DIRECTORS

MATTHEW AUCOIN composer, conductor, pianist ZACK WINOKUR director, choreographer, dancer JONNY ALLEN percussionist PAUL APPLEBY tenor DOUG BALLIETT double bassist, composer JULIA BULLOCK soprano JAY CAMPBELL cellist ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO countertenor MIRANDA CUCKSON violinist, violist JULIA EICHTEN dancer, choreographer EMI FERGUSON flutist KEIR GOGWILT violinist, scholar CONOR HANICK pianist COLEMAN ITZKOFF cellist OR SCHRAIBER dancer, choreographer BOBBI JENE SMITH dancer, choreographer DAVÓNE TINES bass-baritone

KATHY SCHUMAN president MARTA MILLER vice president MATTHEW BIRD treasurer ADAM CHARLAP HYMAN secretary STEPHEN NOVICK

JENNIFER CHEN managing director CATH BRITTAN producer MARY McGOWAN company manager REBECCA SIGEL AMOC* at Ojai line producer and company manager TERESA HARTMANN AMOC* at Ojai stage manager ANNA DROZDOWSKI AMOC* at Ojai stage manager

Ensemble Profiles AMOC* MEMBERS Jonny Allen is a Grammy-nominated percussionist whose contagious passion for music has been described as “a demonstration of raw power, virtuosity and feeling” by The New York Times. Allen has won prizes at both the International Chamber Music Competition and the International Marimba Competition in Salzburg, giving respective performances at Carnegie Hall and Schloss Hoch in Flachau, Austria. He has also performed as a drum set soloist with Ghana’s National Symphony Orchestra at the National Theatre in Accra. Allen performs regularly with his percussion quartet, Sandbox, and his jazz trio, Triplepoint. He is also a committed educator on percussion faculty at University of Missouri, Kansas City; co-directs the NYU Sandbox Percussion Seminar each summer; and gives workshops and master classes worldwide. He holds a bachelor’s degree and performer’s certificate from the Eastman School of Music, as well as a master’s degree and artist diploma from the Yale School of Music.

Matthew Aucoin is an American composer, conductor, writer, and pianist.

He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2018 and was artist in residence at Los Angeles Opera. Aucoin’s newest opera, Eurydice, a collaboration with playwright Sarah Ruhl, had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Opera in February 2019, and traveled to the Metropolitan Opera in the 2021-22 season.

The role of artist in residence at Los Angeles Opera, created for Aucoin, fused his work as composer and conductor.

Aucoin has conducted LA Opera mainstage productions ranging from Verdi’s Rigoletto to Philip Glass’s Akhnaten; he has also conducted his own works, including the opera Crossing, and founded a new latenight concert series, AfterHours. In addition, Aucoin coaches the singers in LA Opera’s Young Artist program and advises the company on new music.

Aucoin’s orchestral and chamber music has been commissioned and performed by such artists as Yo-Yo Ma, Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra, Salzburg’s Mozarteum Orchestra, the Brentano Quartet, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, tenor Paul Appleby, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, and Chanticleer.

Aucoin’s operas include Crossing (2015), commissioned by the American Repertory Theater; and Second Nature (2015), a chamber opera for the young, commissioned by the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In addition to his work in Los Angeles, Aucoin regularly guest-conducts nationally and internationally. In 2018, Aucoin made his Santa Fe Opera conducting debut leading John Adams’s Doctor Atomic in a new production by Peter Sellars.

Tenor Paul Appleby, admired for his interpretive depth, vocal strength, and range of expressivity, is one of the most sought-after voices of his generation.

Appleby continues to grace the stages of the world’s most distinguished concert halls and opera houses

while collaborating with leading orchestras, instrumentalists, and conductors. Recent appearances include performances of John Adams’s Girls of the Golden West with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic and productions of Candide at the Grand Théâtre de Genève and Die Zauberflöte at the Glyndebourne Festival.

Appleby’s operatic performances span both world premieres and beloved classics and have included the title role of Pelléas et Mélisande at the Metropolitan Opera and at Dutch National Opera; the world premiere of John Adams and Peter Sellars’s Girls of the Golden West (Joe Cannon) at the Dutch National Opera and San Francisco Opera; Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress (Tom Rakewell); new productions of Handel’s Saul (Jonathan) and of Béatrice et Bénédict (Bénédict) at the Glyndebourne Festival; Die Zauberflöte (Tamino) at San Francisco Opera and Washington National Opera; and Offenbach’s The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein (Fritz) at Santa Fe Opera.

Appleby’s discography includes Nico Muhly’s opera Two Boys; DVDs of Glyndebourne’s acclaimed presentation of Handel’s Saul (2015) and Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict (2016); Dear Theo, an album dedicated solely to works by American composer Ben Moore; in addition to other recordings by Virgin Classics, and EMI’s Juilliard Sessions.

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Ensemble Profiles AMOC* MEMBERS continued Doug Balliett is a composer, instrumentalist, and poet based in New York City. The New York Times has described his poetry as “brilliant and witty” (Clytie and the Sun), his bass playing as “elegant” (Shawn Jaeger’s In Old Virginny), and his compositions as “vivid, emotive, with contemporary twists” (Actaeon). Popular new music blog I Care if You Listen has critiqued Balliett’s work as “weird in the best possible way” (A Gnostic Passion) and “light-hearted yet dark… it had the audience laughing one minute and in tears the next…” (Pyramus and Thisbe). He hosted a weekly show on New York Public Radio for three years, and was a titled member of the San Antonio Symphony for five. He teaches historical performance and a Beatles course at The Juilliard School, and composes weekly cantatas for a Roman Catholic Church on the Lower East Side of NYC. Julia Bullock, one of Musical America’s 2021 “Artists of the Year,” is an American classical singer who “communicates intense, authentic feeling, as if she were singing right from her soul” (Opera News). Combining versatile artistry with a probing intellect and commanding stage presence, she has headlined productions and concerts at preeminent arts institutions around the world. An innovative curator in high demand from a diverse group of organizations,

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she has held notable positions including collaborative partner of Esa-Pekka Salonen and 2019-20 artist in residence at the San Francisco Symphony; 2020-22 artist in residence of London’s Guildhall School; and 2018-19 artist in residence at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bullock’s opera debuts include San Francisco Opera in the world premiere of Girls of the Golden West; Santa Fe Opera in Doctor Atomic; Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Dutch National Opera in The Rake’s Progress; the English National Opera, Teatro Real, and Bolshoi Theatre in the title role of The Indian Queen.

In concert, she has collaborated with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, London’s Philharmonia and London Symphony orchestras, NHK Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, and Los Angeles Philharmonic, while her recital highlights include appearances at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Celebrity Series, Washington’s Kennedy Center, and the Mostly Mozart and Ojai Music festivals (2011 and 2016). Her growing discography features Grammy-nominated accounts of West Side Story and Doctor Atomic. Committed to integrating community activism with her musical life, Bullock is also a prominent voice for social consciousness and change.

Armed with a diverse spectrum of repertoire and eclectic musical interests, cellist Jay Campbell has been recognized for approaching both old and new works with the same probing curiosity and emotional commitment. His performances have been called “electrifying” by The New York Times and “gentle, poignant, and deeply moving”

by The Washington Post. A 2016 recipient

of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, Campbell made his debut with the New York Philharmonic in 2013 and worked with Alan Gilbert in 2016 as the artistic director for Ligeti Forward for the New York Philharmonic Biennale.

Dedicated to introducing audiences to the music of our time, Campbell has worked closely with some of our most creative musicians including Pierre Boulez, Elliot Carter, Matthias Pintscher, John Adams, Kaija Saariaho, and countless others from his own generation. His close association with John Zorn resulted in the 2015 release of Hen to Pan (Tzadik) featuring all works written for Campbell, and was listed in The New York Times’ year-end Best Recordings of 2015.

Other discs include George Perle’s cello concerto with the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot (Bridge); a disc of Beethoven, Debussy, Stravinsky, and Pintscher (Victor Elmaleh Collection); and a collection of works commissioned for Campbell by David Fulmer (Tzadik). Equally enthusiastic as a chamber musician and teacher, Campbell is a member of the JACK Quartet (who last appeared at the 2019 Ojai Music Festival), a piano trio with violinist Stefan Jackiw and pianist Conrad Tao; and has served on faculty at Vassar College.

2022 Grammy Award winner Anthony Roth Costanzo has appeared in opera, concert, recital, film, and on Broadway. Most recently, he returned to the Metropolitan Opera in his acclaimed performance of the title role in Philip Glass’s Akhnaten. This

Ensemble Profiles AMOC* MEMBERS continued season, he is also artist in residence at the New York Philharmonic, performing and curating programming to reflect on questions of identity. This summer, the BBC Proms presents his multi-disciplinary performance installation Glass Handel, with choreography by Justin Peck, live painting

by George Condo, and costumes by Raf Simons. Costanzo has performed and produced around the world at venues including Carnegie Hall, Versailles, Madison Square Garden, Philadelphia Opera, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Kennedy Center, the London Symphony Orchestra, KabukiZa Tokyo, San Francisco Opera, the Guggenheim, Chicago Lyric Opera, the Park Avenue Armory, Teatro Real Madrid, and many others. His debut album, ARC, a collection of arias by Handel and Glass with Les Violons du Roy, was nominated for a Grammy. His live show and second album Only an Octave Apart with cabaret legend Justin Vivian Bond received numerous “Best of 2021” accolades, ranging from TIME Magazine to The New York Times and Washington Post. Costanzo was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his performance in a Merchant Ivory film and graduated with honors from Princeton University, where he has returned to teach, and Manhattan School of Music, where he is on the board of trustees.

A “visionary, and tremendously talented artist” (Sequenza21), violinist Miranda Cuckson delights listeners with her playing of a great range of music and styles. Known for her organic expressivity, dexterous virtuosity,

and imagination, she is sought after internationally as a soloist and collaborator.

As soloist she has performed at the Berlin Philharmonie, Teatro Colón, Cleveland Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Strathmore, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music, and the Bard, Marlboro, Portland, Music Mountain, West Cork, SinusTon, Wien Modern, LeGuessWho and Soundsofmusic festivals. She recently premiered concertos by Georg Friedrich Haas in Tokyo, Stuttgart and Porto, and

by Marcela Rodriguez in Mexico City. She last appeared in Ojai for the 75th Festival in September 2021.

While remaining dedicated to the Western classical repertoire, Cuckson has played innumerable acclaimed concerts of new works, playing an inspirational role in bringing new creations more to the center of concert life. Reflecting her perspective as a multiethnic American, Cuckson works with artists from many backgrounds. Composers who have written works for her include Jason Eckardt, George Lewis, Wang Lu, Jeffrey Mumford, Aida Shirazi, Steve Lehman, Reiko Füting, Michael Hersch, Rand Steiger, Harold Meltzer, and Dongryul Lee. Her albums include the Bartók, Schnittke and Lutoslawski sonatas on ECM; Ligeti, Korngold, and Ponce concertos; many major American composers; and Nono’s La lontananza, named a Recording of the Year by the New York Times. She is an alumna of The Juilliard School, having studied there from pre-college through her doctorate, and she was awarded Juilliard’s Presser Award.

Julia Eichten — dance artist, choreographer, and director — is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where she received the Hector Zaraspe Award in recognition of her choreography. Eichten was a founding member of LA Dance Project.

Since her time with LA Dance Project, Eichten continued her work with Gerard & Kelly as a performing artist as well as an associate choreographer on such projects as Bridge-s, in collaboration with Solange and the Getty Museum of Los Angeles. In 2019, Eichten shared a premiere with collaborator Frances Chiaverini of It’s My House and I Live Here, at TorSpace, Frankfurt, in collaboration with Whistle While You Work.

In early 2020 she shared her directorial debut with Lisenka Heijboer Castanon, with Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect in Through Movement. She performed in Alex Da Corte’s reimagining of Allan Kaprow’s Chicken, with choreography by Kate Watson Wallace. Eichten has taught at CalArts, BeMoving, and Pieter Performance Space.

In recent years, Eichten has been a part of the ongoing work Broken Theater by Bobbi Jene Smith and is currently in process with her creative partner Bret Easterling. In 2021, Eichten was part of Sandbox’s visual album Seven Pillars and self-produced her first film, The Body Inside Me.

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Ensemble Profiles AMOC* MEMBERS continued Emi Ferguson, flutist, is excited to be back at the 2022 Ojai Music Festival.

Outside of Ojai, Ferguson can be heard in concerts and festivals with groups including the Handel and Haydn Society, AMOC*, the New York New Music Ensemble, and the Manhattan Chamber Players. Her recordings celebrate her fascination with reinvigorating music and instruments of the past for the present. Her debut album, Amour Cruel, an indie-pop song cycle inspired by the music of the 17thcentury French court, was released by Arezzo Music in September 2017, spending four weeks on the classical, classical crossover, and world music Billboard charts. Her 2019 album Fly the Coop: Bach Sonatas and Preludes, a collaboration with continuo band Ruckus, debuted at #1 on the iTunes classical charts and #2 on the Billboard classical charts, and was called “blindingly impressive ... a fizzing, daring display of personality and imagination” by The New York Times.

A passionate chamber musician of works new and old, Ferguson has been a featured performer at the Marlboro, Lucerne, Ojai, Lake Champlain, Bach Virtuosi, and June in Buffalo festivals, often premiering new works by composers of our time. Ferguson has spoken and performed at several TEDx events and has been featured on media outlets including the Discovery Channel, Amazon Prime, and Vox talking about how music relates to our world today. Born in Japan and raised in London and Boston, she now resides in New York City.

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Keir GoGwilt is a violinist, scholar, and composer whose work combines close listening, research, and collaborative experimentation, exploring the ways in which cultural and material histories shape musical creativity and meaning.

As a violinist, GoGwilt has been described as a “formidable performer” (New York Times) noted for his “evocative sound” (London Jazz News) and “finger-busting virtuosity” (San Diego Union Tribune). He has soloed with groups including the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Chinese National Symphony, Orquesta Filarmonica de Santiago, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Bowdoin International Music Festival Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Manhattan School of Music Chamber Sinfonia, Music Academy of the West chamber orchestra, and the La Jolla Symphony, among others.

GoGwilt’s creative work is often collaborative and interdisciplinary. He has performed his original works at festivals/series including Luminato, PS 122 COIL, Stanford Live (Bing Theater), the American Repertory Theater, Carolina Performing Arts, Darmstadt, La Mama, the Momentary, the Audio Foundation, Pyramid Club, Spectrum NYC, and the Clark Art Museum, and has released his original compositions on Another Timbre and 577 Records. His music co-composed with bassist Kyle Motl has been noted for its “rich tones, rhapsodic gestures” (The New Yorker) and “clinical precision” (The Wire).

GoGwilt received his PhD in music from the University of California, San Diego. He has presented his research on histories and philosophies of performance at conferences throughout the United States and Europe and has published articles in Current Musicology, the Orpheus Institute Series, and Naxos Musicology.

Pianist Conor Hanick “defies human description” for some (Concerto Net) and recalls “a young Peter Serkin” for others (The New York Times). He has performed to acclaim throughout the world with some of music’s leading ensembles, instrumentalists, and conductors, including Pierre Boulez, Alan Gilbert, Ludovic Morlot, and David Robertson. A fierce advocate for the music of today, and the “soloist of choice for such thorny works” (NYT) Hanick has premiered over 200 works to date. He has collaborated with musical icons like Steve Reich, Kaija Saariaho, and Charles Wuorinen, while also championing important voices of his own generation including Caroline Shaw, Nico Muhly, Christopher Cerrone, and Marcos Balter.

This season Hanick will premiere chamber works by Hilda Paredes, Tyshawn Sorey, and Anthony Cheung; a set of piano études by Nico Muhly; and a piano concerto by Samuel Carl Adams with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony. Hanick has been presented at Carnegie Hall, the Mondavi Center, Caramoor, Cal Performances, the Kennedy Center, and the Park Avenue Armory. He is the director of solo piano at the Music Academy of the West and serves on the faculty of the Peabody Institute and The Juilliard School.

Ensemble Profiles AMOC* MEMBERS continued Hailed by Alex Ross in The New Yorker for his “flawless technique and keen musicality,” cellist Coleman Itzkoff enjoys a diverse career as a soloist, chamber musician, and educator. Itzkoff made his professional debut at the age of 15 with Ohio’s Dayton Philharmonic and has since appeared as soloist with orchestras and in chamber music series countrywide.

Recent season highlights include performances with the Houston Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, San Jose Chamber Orchestra, American Youth Symphony at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Mason Home Concerts, The Philharmonic Society of Orange County, Caramoor, Texas’s Sarafim Music, and Virginia’s Moss Art Center. Future projects include recitals of Baroque and early classical music, several commissions from composers, performing virtually for hospital patients in collaboration with Project: Music Heals Us, and continuing his studies as an artist diploma candidate at The Juilliard School.

Among the distinguished artists with whom Itzkoff has worked are conductors David Allan Miller, Carlos Izcaray, Eckart Preu, Roderick Cox, and Tomáš Netopil. He has attended numerous summer music festivals including Aspen Music Festival and School, the International Heifetz Institute, La Jolla SummerFest, YellowBarn, Music@Menlo, and

Marlboro Music Festival. He has collaborated in chamber music with such musicians as violinists Pamela Frank, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Cho-Liang Lin, and Glenn Dicterow; soprano Lucy Shelton; cellists David Finckel and Johannes Moser; violist Roger Tapping; and pianists Gil Kalish and Peter Frankl.

Or Schraiber is a dancer, actor, and choreographer. He danced with the Batsheva Company from 2010 to 2017.

In parallel to his time in the company, he served with the Israel Defense Forces for three years. After moving to NYC, Schraiber starred in or choreographed films such as Boaz Yakin’s Aviva and Terrence Malick’s The Way of the Wind. He played the role of Zelger in the national Broadway tour of The Band’s Visit. His choreography has been presented by numerous dance companies including Batsheva Dance Company, LA Dance Project, The Royal Danish Ballet, Corpus, and more.

Schraiber has choreographed and performed in several commercials, short films, and music videos. He has also directed his own short dance films: Obsidian, Gallop Apace, Bloodroot, and Shivta. He is an alumnus of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and the Stella Adler Studio for Acting.

Bobbi Jene Smith is a director, choreographer, and dancer, who makes work for both live theater and film.

Her work explores affect and apathy, domestic politics, and the rhythmic and formal connections between music and movement. She danced for the Batsheva Company from 2005-14.

She has since choreographed original work for the Martha Graham Dance Company, LA Dance Project, Vail Dance Festival, The Royal Danish Ballet, the Batsheva Dance Company, and others. Her dance and music theater works have been presented and supported by the American Repertory Theater, PS 122, La Mama, ODC Theater, Stanford Live, Carolina Performing Arts, Kaufman Hall at the 92nd St Y, Luminato Festival, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and others. Additionally, she has starred in and choreographed for films including Elvira Lind’s Bobbi Jene, Georgia Parris’s Mari, and Alex Garland’s Annihilation. She has directed her own dance films including Broken Theater and Gallop Apace.

Smith is an alumna of The Juilliard School, North Carolina School of the Arts, and Royal Winnipeg School. In 2019 she was awarded The Harkness Promise Award and was The Martha Duffy Resident Artist at Baryshnikov Art Center. In 2020 she was a resident artist at La MaMa Experimental Theater Club, where she developed Broken Theater. In 2023 she will create a new work with Or Schraiber and Celeste Oram for the Paris Opera Ballet.

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Ensemble Profiles AMOC* MEMBERS continued Davóne Tines is a pathbreaking artist whose work not only encompasses a diverse repertoire, from early music to new commissions by leading composers, but also explores the social issues of today. A performer at the intersection of many histories, cultures, and aesthetics, he is engaged in work that blends opera, art song, contemporary classical music, spirituals, gospel, and songs of protest, as a means to tell a deeply personal story of perseverance that connects to all of humanity. Tines is artist in residence at Detroit Opera — an appointment that culminates in his performance in the title role of Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X this spring — and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale’s Creative Partner. His ongoing projects include Recital No. 1: MASS and Concerto No. 1: SERMON, a program he conceived for voice and orchestra that weaves texts by writers including James Baldwin and Langston Hughes with arias by John Adams, Anthony Davis, and Igee Dieudonné and Tines. He premieres Concerto No. 2: ANTHEM this summer at the Hollywood Bowl. Tines is a co-creator of The Black Clown, a music theater experience commissioned and premiered by The American Repertory Theater. Tines is Musical America’s 2022 Vocalist of the Year and a recipient of the 2020 Sphinx Medal of Excellence. He is a graduate of The Juilliard School and Harvard University, where he also serves as guest lecturer. Tines last appeared in Ojai at the 2017 Festival.

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With his work described as “pure poetry” (Boston Globe), stage director, choreographer, and dancer Zack Winokur is recognized as one of the most innovative and exciting talents working in opera today. Recent highlights include Only an Octave Apart (“a glittering, disarming, poignant reminder of why theater exists” — W Magazine) featuring Anthony Roth Costanzo and Justin Vivian Bond with new arrangements by Nico Muhly at St. Ann’s Warehouse, the NY Philharmonic, and Opera Philadelphia; EASTMAN, a commission from Little Island’s inaugural festival centering the work and life of composer Julius Eastman; his “rich, seamless” (NY Times) production of The Black Clown, at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center and the American Repertory Theater; his “darkly captivating” (NY Times) production of Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine, by Tyshawn Sorey and Claudia Rankine, starring Julia Bullock on the grand staircase of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and other productions at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Dutch National Opera, Stanford Live. Upcoming productions include Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the Santa Fe Opera. Winokur served as artistic director of NYPopsUp, a sprawling governor’s initiative to reopen the performing arts across NY State with over 300 free and public performances featuring hundreds of artists from February to July 2021; and co-teaches, with Davóne Tines, a transdisciplinary storytelling class at Harvard.

AMOC* Producer Cath Brittan is originally from Manchester, England.

She lived in Vienna for many years working with the Wiener Festwochen. She has worked as production manager and producer for dance, theater, and opera companies around the world including English National Opera, London; The Bolshoi, Moscow; Teatro Real, Madrid; The National Theater of Finland; Opera de Comique, Paris; Grand Théâtre de Genève, Geneva; The Los Angeles Philharmonic, The New York Philharmonic, The San Francisco Symphony, The Public Theater; and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. She produced Iphigenia for Esperanza Spalding and Wayne Shorter; and Glass Handel and Aci, Galatea e Polifemo with Anthony Roth Costanzo. Brittan has been AMOC*’s producer since 2018.

Artistic Collaborators Victoria Chang’s latest book of poetry is The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon Press). Her nonfiction book Dear Memory (Milkweed Editions) was published in 2021.

OBIT (Copper Canyon Press, 2020) was named a New York Times “Notable Book,” a Time “Must-Read Book,” and received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN/Voelcker Award. It was also longlisted for a National Book Award and named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Griffin International Poetry Prize. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and lives in Los Angeles and is a core faculty member within Antioch’s lowresidency MFA Program.

Carolyn Chen has made music for supermarket, demolition district, and the dark. Her work reconfigures the everyday to retune habits of our ears through sound, text, light, and movement. Her studies of the guqin, a Chinese zither traditionally played for private meditation in nature, have informed her thinking on listening in social spaces. Recent projects include an audio essay on a scream and commissions for Klangforum Wien and the LA Phil New Music Group. Described by The New York Times as “the evening’s most consistently alluring … a quiet but lush meditation,” her work has been presented in 25 countries and supported by the Berlin Prize, the Fulbright Program,

and ASCAP’s Fred Ho Award for work that “defies boundaries and genres.” Writing and recordings are available in MusikTexte, Experimental Music Yearbook, New Centennial Review, Leonardo Music Journal, Quakebasket, and the wulf. She earned a PhD in music from UC San Diego and a MA in Modern Thought and Literature and BA in music from Stanford University. She lives in Los Angeles.

Composer/pianist Anthony Cheung writes music that explores the senses, a wide palette of instrumental play and affect, improvisational traditions, reimagined musical artifacts, and multiple layers of textual meaning. His music has been commissioned and performed by leading groups such as the Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Intercontemporain, New York Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Scharoun Ensemble, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and many others. From 2015-17 he was the Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow with the Cleveland Orchestra. He is the recipient of a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as a 2012 Rome Prize, and received first prize at the 2008 Dutilleux Competition. As a co-founder of New York’s Talea Ensemble, he served as pianist and artistic director of the group. Recordings include three portrait discs: Cycles and Arrows (New Focus), Dystemporal (Wergo), and Roundabouts (Ensemble Modern Medien). He studied at Harvard and Columbia, and was a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. He taught at the University of Chicago from 2013-20 and is currently associate professor of music at Brown University.

Bret Easterling has been surrounded by dance ever since he was born in Palo Alto, California. Growing up in his mother’s dance studio, his career began at the age of 7, dancing in commercial work including a duet with Angela Lansbury in Mrs. Santa Claus, and in Fiona Apple’s music video for “Paper Bag.” At 11, he was a founding member of Teen Dance Company of the Bay Area, an original cast member of New York Stage Original’s Tap Kids, and an annual performer in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular.

After high school, Easterling moved to New York City to study at The Juilliard School, where he received his BFA and the Hector Zaraspe Prize for Choreography in 2010.

While in school, he was a formative member of Andrea Miller’s Gallim Dance and a guest performer with Buglisi Dance Theatre. Upon graduation, Easterling was invited by Ohad Naharin to join the Ensemble Batsheva in Tel Aviv, Israel. He was ultimately promoted to the acclaimed Batsheva Dance Company, which gave him the opportunity to tour internationally and participate in creative processes with Naharin, Sharon Eyal, and Roy Assaf.

In 2011, Easterling began teaching Gaga, and has since had the privilege of sharing this movement language with dancers and people in many countries. Easterling has always had a strong passion for choreography and has received numerous honors for his works. He is also a certified Ilan Lev Method practitioner, a rehearsal director for Gallim Dance, and the artistic director of BEMOVING.

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Artistic Collaborators Vinson Fraley was born in Statesville, North Carolina, and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He began his formal training in voice and drama at DeKalb School of the Arts. He started dancing at the age of 14 at DanceMakers of Atlanta. Fraley received his BFA in dance from NYU Tisch in 2015. During his final year of college he became a member of Kyle Abraham’s A.I.M (Abraham.In.Motion) and later joined the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company in 2017. Fraley has been a frequent collaborator with Carrie Mae Weems. He collaborated with Sterling Ruby and the Metropolitan Museum for the In America: A Lexicon of Fashion exhibition. Fraley teamed up with artist Janet Biggs in a work made for Arts at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). Fraley has also performed at Frieze Art Fair under the direction of Stephen Galloway. He is currently working alongside international choreographer Bobbi Jene Smith on her newest creation, Broken Theater. Most recently Fraley debuted a duet he created for himself and Sara Mearns at the Joyce Theatre.

He has had the opportunity to present solo works in the U.S., Germany, and France. Fraley contributed an original music composition for the Bill T. Jones/ Arnie Zane Company’s newest work titled Afterwardsness. His work has been written about and featured in various publications including The New York Times and Interview Magazine, has appeared on the cover of V Magazine, I-d Magazine, Highsnobiety, Document Journal, and Dance Magazine.

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Jonathan Fredrickson was born in Corpus Christi, Texas. He attended California Institute of the Arts, where he received his BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography. Fredrickson danced with the Limon Dance Company from 2006-11 and created two works on the company during his time there: The Edge of Some World and Chrysalis. In 2010, he was a winner of Hubbard Street’s National Choreographic Competition and was also honored as one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch.” He then danced with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago from 2011-15, where he was commissioned to create two new works for the company, Untitled Landscape and For the Wandered. His work has been shown in festivals such as Hong Kong Dance Festival, Reverb Dance Festival, and White Wave, and he has created for programs like California Institute of the Arts, CalState Fullerton, Limon Institute, and Sundance/ Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre.

He joined the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch in 2015, where he has been performing her work internationally, and creating for the company’s choreographic platform UNDERGROUND with the works Epilogue and Afternoon Forest Birds.

Carrie Frey, viola, is an active performer and educator, focused on working with inquisitive musicians and composers and encouraging creativity in her students. An enthusiastic proponent of new music, Frey has premiered over 200 works, and her own compositions have been performed by the Rhythm Method, violinist Adrianne Munden-

Dixon, and violist Kallie Sugatski. Frey is the violist of the Rhythm Method and a founding member of string trio Chartreuse and string quartet Desdemona. She has performed with many of New York City’s notable new music ensembles, including Wet Ink Large Ensemble, AMOC*, Talea Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Signal, Cantata Profana, Heartbeat Opera, and S.E.M. Ensemble. Also comfortable as an improviser, Frey performs with Simone Baron’s ensemble Arco Belo and electroacoustic trio Hierophant. Her sonata album, The Grey Light of Day, with pianist Robert Fleitz, was released by Wild Iris Productions in 2016. As an orchestral musician, Frey has played with the American Composers Orchestra, the Greenville Symphony, the Savannah Philharmonic, and at festivals around the world, including the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, Britten-Pears Festival, Grafenegg Academy, and Pacific Music Festival. Frey is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory (BM) and the Manhattan School of Music Contemporary Performance Program (MM), and is currently pursuing a DMA at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

The music of American composer Mark Grey has been commissioned or premiered by such organizations as The Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, The New York Philharmonic, The National Opera of Belgium La Monnaie | de Munt Opera, Carnegie Hall, CalPerformances, The Los Angeles Master Chorale, Kronos Quartet, Berkeley Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Green Bay Symphony, California Symphony,

Artistic Collaborators The Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, and several others along with festivals at Ravinia, Cabrillo, OtherMinds, Perth International, and Spoleto.

Grey was commissioned by La Monnaie | de Munt to write an evening-length grand opera FRANKENSTEIN which premiered in Brussels during the spring of 2019. In January 2020 his work Rainbow Bridge for 100 electric guitars premiered outdoors on the grounds of Circus Maximus as part of the Rome Festival. Grey is also an Emmy Award winning sound designer having premiered major opera and concert works worldwide.

Gleb Kanasevich is a clarinetist, composer, and noise/drone musician. He works often as a soloist and collaborates with composers, chamber music groups, improvisers, noise musicians, death metal bands, and many more types of artists. His blackened noise album Asleep (Unknown Tapes) and the immersive 45-minute Subtraction (Flag Day Recordings) came out to critical acclaim in 2019. His massive drone projects continued in the project If you want to be reborn, let yourself die, released in 2020.

Most recently, he was commissioned by Ensemble Intercontemporain, Callithumpian Consort, and No Exit New Music Ensemble.

In 2020, he released a new improvisation project for modified recorder and guitar amplifiers, Capacity. It came out as a very limited edition of 20 lathe-cut vinyl records with unique hand-drawn sleeves in July 2020. Capacity has been followed by fully composed works for cello (written for Peter Kibbe, commissioned by NakedEye Ensemble) and bass clarinet (commissioned through Cultural Council of Australia).

He has been a core member of Ensemble Cantata Profana, a group based in New York City. In August 2018, he became the ensemble’s associate artistic director after moving to New York City. From 2016 until spring 2019, Kanasevich also worked as a curator/video maker for the online new music database and audio/video/ score resource ScoreFollower/Incipitsify.

In March 2021, he transformed Unknown Tapes from a self-release platform into a recording artist community dedicated to showcasing work by artists with unique approaches to spontaneous music making and improvisation techniques, regardless of genre.

Jesse Kovarsky is a performer and movement director.

He earned his Master’s in Performance from Trinity Laban in London and has worked with choreographers all over the world including Hofesh Shechter, Sidi Larbi Cherkoui, Punchdrunk, Alexander Ekman, Ryan Heffington, Russell Maliphant, Bobbi Jene Smith, Arthur Pita, Sonya Tayeh, and Celia Rolson-Hall. He gravitates towards more theatrical work, having originated roles in Punchdrunk’s The Drowned Man and performed in their hit show Sleep No More.

He has appeared on Broadway in Fiddler on the Roof and The Band’s Visit and has danced in various films and TV productions including Anna Karenina, Muppets Most Wanted, Tick Tick Boom, After Yang, and Harlem. He has collaborated with notable brands such as Netflix, Amazon, Hermes, Virgin, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Nike.

Yiannis Logothetis is a queer interdisciplinary artivist and teacher with a focus on performance, dance improvisation, and movement medicine. His passion for learning multiple disciplines, meeting different cultures, celebrating the virtue of the body through the wisdom of music, dance, and literature allows him to travel around the world observing, performing, creating, teaching, and expanding his studies on qigong, contemplative action practices, and decolonization. He is currently engaged in project-based works with AMOC*, Corpo Maquina under Evangelos Biskas, and Yang Zhen Company. His recent and past artistic collaborations and studies include prestigious contemporary artists such as Bobbi Jene Smith, Crystal Pite, Andrea Miller, Maxine Doyle, Daria Fain, Bonnie Cohen, Boaz Yakin, and Elton John. Following his dance degree from Marymount Manhattan College, he joined the cast of the awardwinning production of Sleep No More NYC by Punchdrunk International. While still performing, creating, and sharing his collaborative works globally, his focus does not seem to disengage from a constant connection with self-healing work through qigong, somatics, and antiracism studies.

His love for connecting people through dance and music led him to cofound the Warrior Poets in 2017, a team of artists that creates and produces work seeking to connect people through live dance and music performances, parties, and workshops all around the world. Born in Seattle, Washington, and raised in Thessaloniki, Greece, Logothetis’s professional dance training includes contemporary, hip-hop, popping, house, ballet, modern, ballroom, and standard dance; Greek folklore, contact improvisation, Argentine tango, and more.

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Artistic Collaborators Ruckus is a Baroque band with a fresh, visceral approach to early music. The ensemble’s debut earned widespread critical acclaim: “achingly delicate one moment, incisive and punchy the next” (The New York Times); “superb” (Opera News). Ruckus’s core members form a continuo group, the Baroque equivalent of a rhythm section: guitars, harpsichords, cello, bassoon, and bass. The ensemble aims to fuse the earlymusic movement’s questing, creative spirit with the grit, groove, and jangle of American roots music, creating a unique sound of “rough-edged intensity” (The New Yorker).

Ruckus’ first album, an acclaimed collaboration with Emi Ferguson of Bach Sonatas and Preludes, debuted at #2 on the Billboard charts.

Current programs in development include Holy Manna, a participatory concert experience through Shape-Note music, featuring John Taylor Ward, Bridge Hill Kennedy, Sophie Michaux, and Adam Jacob Simon; Arcadian Visions, a recital featuring Emi Ferguson and Rachell Ellen Wong; and Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre Sonatas with violinist Keir GoGwilt.

Matilda Sakamoto is a choreographer, movement director, dancer, and actor based in Brooklyn and Los Angeles. Her work can be seen on stage and film. She made her acting debut at the Public Theater in the world premiere of The Michaels and The Michaels Abroad,

by Tony Award–winning playwright/director Richard Nelson. It was chosen as a New York Times Critic’s Pick and nominated for a Drama League Award.

Sakamoto was a 2020 Ann & Weston Hicks Choreographic Fellow at Jacob’s Pillow. She was chosen to be a 2020 dance resident at Art Omi and resident at The Barn at Lee. She has presented work at Highways Performance Space in Los Angeles.

Sakamoto was commissioned to create a new work for the NEXT@Graham series at the Martha Graham Studios and the Juilliard Summer Dance Program in 2018.

Internationally, Sakamoto has choreographed an original dance opera, William William, in collaboration with Petr Kotik, of the Brooklyn-based S.E.M. Ensemble. The opera enjoyed premieres at Kotik’s NODO festival in Prague and the Paula Cooper Gallery in Chelsea, New York.

Her credits as movement director include music videos for Wet, an indie-pop band, and their song “Old Bone”, and “Tender” by neo-R&B singer and 88rising creative director, TIN. As a dancer, Sakamoto has performed in theaters, museums, on film, and in numerous music videos. A native of Los Angeles, Sakamoto received a BFA in dance from The Juilliard School.

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Carlos Soto is a director and designer based in New York City, where he studied art history and literature at the Pratt Institute.

His GIRLMACHINE premiered at Performa 09 and was subsequently presented in Paris by the American University of Paris.

In 2011, he was featured in an evening of works curated by Robert Wilson for Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum.

Soto has collaborated with recording and performance artist Solange as associate director and costume designer on multiple projects, most recently on the film and festival tour accompanying her album When I Get Home. In 2018, Soto designed sets and costumes for Davóne Tines’s and Michael Schachter’s The Black Clown, directed by Zack Winokur at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge. In 2016 Soto designed costumes for a touring evening-length retrospective of Lucinda Childs’ works spanning dances from 1967 to today.

Soto has worked with Robert Wilson since 1997 as a performer, designer, and assistant on numerous productions in the U.S. and Europe. He re-designed the costumes for the revival of Wilson’s and Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach. Most recently he designed costumes for Wilson’s staging of Sophocles’ Oedipus, staged among the ruins of Pompeii in the Teatro Grande (built ca. 200 BCE).

Artistic Collaborators Arthur Sze is a poet, translator, and editor.

He is the author of 11 books of poetry, including The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2021); Sight Lines (2019), for which he received the National Book Award for Poetry; Compass Rose (2014), a Pulitzer Prize finalist; The Ginkgo Light (2009), selected for the PEN Southwest Book Award and the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Book Award; Quipu (2005); The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970–1998 (1998), selected for the Balcones Poetry Prize and the Asian American Literary Award; and Archipelago (1995), selected for an American Book Award. He has also published one book of Chinese poetry translations, The Silk Dragon (2001), selected for the Western States Book Award, and edited Chinese Writers on Writing (2010). A recipient of the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, the eighth annual ‘T’ Space Poetry Award, the Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers, a Lannan Literary Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, two National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, a Howard Foundation Fellowship, as well as five grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, Sze was the first poet laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico. From 2012 to 2017, he was a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and, in 2017, he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

John Torres’s work includes designs for dance, theater, music, fashion, and print. In collaboration with Robert Wilson, productions have included EDDA (Det Norske Teatret Oslo), and “Cheek to Cheek Live! With Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga” (PBS Great Performances). Opera projects include La Traviata and Orfeo et Euridice at Opera Orchestre National Montpellier and Tristan and Isolde at La Monnaie / de Munt in Brussels. Recent theater has included Twelfth Night for Shakespeare in the Park, Delacorte Theatre; and The Black Clown, A.R.T. Cambridge. In music, projects include Taylor Mac: A 24 Decade History of Popular Music; Solange Knowles / Cosmic Journey; and Joni 75: A Birthday Celebration. In dance, Toss and Rogues with choreographer Trisha Brown, Theatre National de Chaillot/ Paris; and Available Light with choreographer Lucinda Childs, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles. In fashion, Givenchy S/S 2015 (New York); Yeezy 3 by Kanye West at Madison Square Garden. With director Steven Klein, music videos Chun Li (Nicki Minaj) and Wolves (Kanye West).

Canadian born, American raised, Stephanie Troyak is a dancer, actress and choreographer. She is an alumnus of Booker T HSPVA, NYU Tisch, and former dancer for the Batsheva Ensemble and Gallim Dance. From 20162021 she spent 5 years as a performer for

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. While there she was nominated for the prestigious “Faust” prize for Best Dancer/Actress for her leading role as Anna in Pina Bausch’s Seven Deadly Sins and named Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch for 2019. The National Arts Center of Canada made a feature documentary about Stephanie’s life and career called PORTRAIT: STEPHANIE TROYAK. Other stage credits include Melanie Laurent’s opera Eugenie’s Tears as Eugenie, and original creations with Alan Lucien Oyen and Dimitris Papaioannou.

Her film/TV work as an actress includes starring in Netflix Original TV series Greenhouse Academy, The Girlfriend Experience, and leading roles in feature films In The Dark, and An American Girl on the Home Front, among others. Her training includes NYU Tisch, Lesly Kahn, & Ted Sluberski, and she is currently working in Los Angeles where she is repped by GVA Talent, APA & Wonder St. Ent. Her choreographic work has been commissioned for Wayne State University, SoulEscape Dance Company, Wanderlust Dance Project, Young Choreographers Festival NY, and YoungArts Miami which won her a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. She guest teaches/choreographs for NYU, USC, CLI Studios, SUNY Purchase, Wayne State University, Sam Houston State, San Jacinto University, Joffrey School of Dance, and many studios/companies around the globe.

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Artistic Collaborators Divya Victor is the author of Curb (Nightboat Books, winner of PEN America Open Book Award and the Kinglsey Tufts Poetry Award); Kith (Fence Books/Book*hug); Scheingleichheit: Drei Essays (Merve Verlag); Natural Subjects (Trembling Pillow), Unsub (Insert Blanc), Things to Do with Your Mouth (Les Figues). Her work has been collected in numerous venues, including BOMB, the New Museum’s The Animated Reader; Crux: Journal of Conceptual Writing, The Best American Experimental Writing, POETRY, and boundary2.

Her work has been translated into French, German, Spanish, and Czech. She has been a Mark Diamond Research Fellow at the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum, a Riverrun Fellow at the Archive for New Poetry at University of California, San Diego, and a writer in residence at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibit (LACE). Her work has been performed and installed at Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) Los Angeles, The National Gallery of Singapore, the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition (LACE), and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

She has been an editor at Jacket2 (United States), Ethos Books (Singapore), Invisible Publishing (Canada), and Book*hug Press (Canada). She is currently an associate professor of English at Michigan State University.

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Recipient of the 2022 Chamber Music America Michael Jaffee Visionary Award and hailed

by The Guardian as “a cellist of power and grace” who possesses “mature artistry and willingness to go to the brink,” cellist Seth Parker Woods has established a reputation as a versatile artist straddling several genres.

Woods’s 2021-22 season will include his debut at the Ojai Music Festival as well as at the Aspen Music Festival, The Britt Festival, 92nd Street Y, Harbourfront Theatre, Chamber Music Society of Virginia, Washington Performing Arts, The Strathmore, The Weisman Art Museum and Harvard. This season of performances will also include concertos by Rebecca Saunders and Tyshawn Sorey, and chamber music with violinist Hilary Hahn and pianist Andreas Haefliger. Woods will serve as artist in residence at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and Northwestern University Center for New Music.

His debut solo album, asinglewordisnotenough (Confront Recordings-London), has garnered great acclaim since its release in November 2016 and has been profiled in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, 5against4, I Care If You Listen, Musical America, Seattle Times, and Strings Magazine, among others.

In the 2021-22 season, Woods joins the faculty at the University at Buffalo as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar and Visiting Professor. He previously served on the music faculties of the University of Chicago, Dartmouth College, and the Chicago Academy of the Arts. He holds degrees from Brooklyn College, Musik Academie der Stadt Basel, and a PhD from the University of Huddersfield.

Percussionist Mari Yoshinaga performs actively as a member of arx duo, a contemporary music ensemble with percussionist Garrett Arney. Their recent performances include Dominic Murcott’s The Harmonic Canon at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in the UK, as well as performances and master classes across the U.S. arx duo is in residence at the Artosphere Festival in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and they’ve served on the faculty of the Young Artist Summer Program at the Curtis Institute of Music. They both are also members of The Percussion Collective of percussion alumni of Yale School of Music directed by Robert van Sice.

Yoshinaga has worked with a number of composers, including Paul Chihara, Nick DiBerardino, Ian Gottlieb, Ted Hearne, Jonathan B Holland, Robert Honstine, Paul Lansky, Michael Larello, Steven Mackey, Dominic Murcott, Garth Neustadter, Angelique Poteate, Angie Chan Ramirez, Juri Seo, Christopher Theofanidis, Alejandro Vinao, and James Wood. Her recording work includes Partita: Suite for Guitar and Percussion by Paul Lansky with guitarist David Starobin (Bridge Records); Cloud Polyphonies by James Wood (NMC Recordings); and The Harmonic Canon

by Dominic Murcott (Nonclassical).

Yoshinaga was born in Kagoshima, Japan.

Immersed in music from an early age, she began studying piano at age 3, marimba at age 5, euphonium at 10, cello at 11, and percussion at 12. She moved to the United States to attend The Curtis Institute of Music, where she earned her bachelor’s degree, and later she earned her master’s degree at Yale School of Music.

ARA GUZELIMIAN Artistic & Executive Director, Ojai Talks Director

Ara Guzelimian is Artistic & Executive Director of the Ojai Music Festival, beginning in that position in July 2020.

The appointment culminates many years of association with the Festival including tenures as director of the Ojai Talks at the Festival and as Artistic Director 1992–97.

Guzelimian stepped down as provost and dean of The Juilliard School in New York City in June 2020, having served in that position since 2007. At Juilliard, he worked closely with the president in overseeing the faculty, curriculum, and artistic planning of the distinguished performing arts conservatory in all three of its divisions: dance, drama, and music. He continues at Juilliard as special advisor to the office of the president.

Prior to the Juilliard appointment, he was senior director and artistic advisor of Carnegie Hall from 1998 to 2006. Guzelimian currently serves as artistic consultant for the Marlboro Music Festival and School in Vermont. He is a member of the steering committee of the Aga Khan Music Awards, the artistic committee of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust in London, and a board member of the Amphion and Pacific Harmony foundations.

He is also a member of the Music Visiting Committee of the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City.

THOMAS MAY Program book annotator

Thomas May is a freelance writer, critic, educator, and translator whose work appears in an array of international publications, including the New York Times, Gramophone, and the program books of Pierre-Boulez Saal in Berlin. The English-language editor for Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, he also writes for such institutions as the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Davos Festival, Metropolitan Opera, and The Juilliard School.

He has translated collections of essays on Toshio Hosokawa, Olga Neuwirth, Thomas Pintscher, and Rebecca Saunders for the Roche Commissions series as well as Protest: The Aesthetics of Resistance, published by the Zurich University of the Arts. His books include Decoding Wagner and The John Adams Reader: Writings on an American Composer (both published by Amadeus Press). He blogs at memeteria.com.

JOHN SCHAEFER Ojai Talks Host

John Schaefer has hosted and produced WNYC’s radio series New Sounds since 1982 (“The No. 1 radio show for the Global Village” – Billboard) and the New Sounds Live concert series since 1986.

Schaefer has written extensively about music, including the book New Sounds: A Listener’s Guide to New Music (Harper & Row, NY, 1987; Virgin Books, London, 1990); The Cambridge Companion to Singing: World Music (Cambridge University Press, U.K., 2000); and the TV program “Bravo Profile: Bobby McFerrin” (Bravo Television, 2003).

He was contributing editor for Spin and Ear magazines, and his liner notes appear on more than 100 recordings, ranging from The Music of Cambodia to recordings by Yo-Yo Ma and Terry Riley.

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The Ojai Festival Women’s Committee (OFWC) is the largest donor to the internationally acclaimed Ojai Music Festival and its BRAVO Music Education and Community Program. Through their philanthropic and volunteer activities, the OFWC has raised more than one million dollars over the past 70 years!

An active 100+ member volunteer committee, the OFWC presents unique events throughout the year, including the annual Holiday Home Tour & Marketplace, Art & Music Trips, Concerts, Lectures, and fun Socials, all fostering lasting friendships and the continued gift of music to the community.

Join us!

For more info about the OFWC visit OjaiFestival.org/Support or call Anna Wagner at the festival office 805 646 2094.

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2021-2022 Annual Giving Contributors $75,000+

“One of the world’s most lovably idiosyncratic festivals…”

Ann and Olin* Barrett Carolyn and Jamie Bennett NancyBell Coe and Bill Burke Kathleen and Jerry Eberhardt Terri and Jerry Kohl Donald Pattison Nancy and Barry Sanders Jill and Bill Shanbrom, The Shanbrom Family Foundation Hope Tschopik Schneider Esther Wachtell

—New York Times

Thank you. With your support you help bring some of the most influential artistic work to be found anywhere, to this iconic setting. We are truly grateful for every member of the Festival family.

LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT THE MAGIC OF OJAI: VISIT

The Festival information booth at Libbey Park

ONLINE

OjaiFestival.org

CALL

Anna Wagner at 805 646 3178

EMAIL

awagner@ojaifestival.org

$59,999-74,999 Anonymous Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne Lennie and Bernie Greenberg Cathryn and Tom Krause Ida and Glenn Mercer Claire and David Oxtoby

$25,000-49,999 Michele Brustin Hyon Chough and Maurice Singer Kathy and Jim Drummy Ruth Eliel and William Cooney Ruth Gilliland and Arthur Rieman National Endowment for the Arts Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting

$10,000-24,999 Anonymous Margaret Bates and Scott Johnson Stephen and Evelyn Block Drs. Bruce Brockman and Bridget Tsao Cynthia Chapman and Neil Selman Constance Eaton and William Hart Michele Edelman Stephan Farber, Sound Post Capital Mechas and Gregory Grinnell Raulee Marcus The Ojai Vineyard Pacific Harmony Foundation Jennie Prebor and Fred Fisher Abby Sher Shelley and Gregory Smith Smith-Hobson Foundation

Photos by Ben Gibbs

$5,000-$9,999

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The Aaron Copland Fund for Music Amphion Foundation Barbara Barry Marjorie Beale and William Meyerhoff Sue Bienkowski and Wang Lee Judy and Merrill Blau Lily and Thomas Brod Pamela Burton and Richard Hertz Janet Clough and Ara Guzelimian in honor of Lawrence Morton Jill Cohen and Norman Siderow

2021-2022 Annual Giving Contributors Barbara Delaune Warren Penny Donnelly Mary and William Duxler Carol Ann Dyer Joanne Ernst and James Collins Lisa Field Elizabeth A. Greenberg in memory of Olin Barrett Linda Joyce Hodge Leslie Lassiter Carol and Luther Luedtke Geneva Martin and Patrick Garvey Sharon McNalley Pamela Melone Thomas W. and Jane Morris Steve Novick in honor of AMOC* & Ara Guzelimian Ann and Harry Oppenheimer Linda and Ron Phillips Peter Schneider Anne-Marie Spataru John and Beverly Stauffer Foundation Jane Taylor and Frederic Ohringer Gary L. Wasserman and Charles Kashner Merrill Williams Susanne and Blake Wilson

$2,500-$4,999 Sasha and William Anawalt Barney and Kate Barnhart Kyle and Rodney Boone Renee Castagnola Dee Dee Dorskind and Bradley Tabach-Bank Michael Dunn Caitlin and James W. Freeman Jan and Arnold Friedman In honor of Sarah Billinghurst Solomon, Siu Li GoGwilt E.J. Harrison and Sons Carol Krause Kathryn Lawhun and Mark Shinbrot Stefanie Ann Lenway and Thomas Murtha Janet Levin and Frank Gruber Dorothy Loebl Joan Oliver Sandy Robertson and Marshall Donovan Marisa Silver and Ken Kwapis Christine Upton Soni Wright Joan Wynn

$1,000-$2,499 Susan and Michael Addison Marianne and Abdelmonem Afifi Margaret and Danilo Bach Mary Baiamonte June and Shed Behar Jean and John Berghoff Beverlee Bickmore and Jim Kelly Susan Bowey Sandra Buechley Diana Burman

Elisa and Eric Callow Sue-Ellen Case Barbara Cohn Cindy Convery, Pure Wild Co Barbara and John Cummings Lynn and Lutgard De Jonghe Frank and Maudette Finck Fund Rachel Fine and Christopher Hawthorne Christopher J. Flacke Fariba Ghaffari Deborah Glusker Melissa Gorris Caroline and Ralph Grierson Susan Grossman Gina Gutierrez and Gary Richardson Katie and Jeffrey Haydon Susan and David Hirsch Terry and Irwin Hoffman Gary Hollander Naomi and Michael Inaba Joan Kemper Perry and Tricia La Marca Carole Lambert and Deborah Smith The Lenny Bruce Lee Memorial Weird Groove Fund Cheryl Lew Montecito Bank and Trust Sally Mosher Lena Muniz Victoria Nightingale Cynthia Nunes and Barbara Nye Christian Perry Jo Anne and Wayne Ratkovich Penny Righthand Anita Rae Shapiro Emmanuel Sharef Jude Sharp and Jack Jackson Ruth Simon Christine Steiner Rachel Ticotin and Peter Strauss John and Jill Walsh Jane and Richard Weirick Ralph E. Wiggen

$500-$999 Lisa and John Adair Kay Austen and Craig Houx Karen Bailey Scott Brinkerhoff Jeannine and George Cobb Ross Conner and Emmett Carlson Fiona Digney and Michael Lee Parker Jr. Robert D. Eisler Karen and Don Evarts Karen and William Evenden Hung Fan and Michael Feldman Susan Feder and Todd Gordon Doris and Caleb Finch Gloria and Tom Forgea Sandy Goodenough and Richard Schulhof Janet Greenberg and Mark Kempson Martha Groszewski Robin Kissell and George Kushner

Carolyn McKnight and Rajeev Talwani Margaret and Fritz Menninger Raindrop Pool and Spa Kathy and Peter Reynolds Stephen M. Rochford Beverly and Pierre Schuberth Barbara Schwartz and Thomas Moore Lu and Tim Setnicka The Steele Family Mark Summa Ann and Steven Sunshine Anne and Tony Thacher Doug Upshaw Sandra Wagner Jeanne Wanlass

$250-$499 Joyce and Ron Allin Elizabeth Bachman and Bob Tallyn Mary Bergen Nancy and Martin Chalifour Esther da Costa Meyer and Christopher Hailey Anne and James Edwards Lore and Ted Exner Peter Flint, Jr. Peter Garst Doreen Gehry Nelson Barry Gold Sharon and William Griswold Annika and Hans Gruenn Angela Heald Barbara and Anthony Hirsch Judith and Sandor Holly Louie Hopkins and Douglas Mirk Essie and David Horwitz William Ireland Maia Jasper White and Philip T. White in memory of Olin Barrett Ed Johnston Carole and Charles Magnuson Peggy and Gerald Matchin Morency Maxwell Lisa McKinnon Gillian McManus and Chris Newell Heidrun Mumper-Drumm in memory of Olin Barrett Mary and Weston Naef Marilyn Nissenson Judith Hale Norris and Bill Norris Jane Roberts Eric Sather David Spiro Gretel Stephens Nancy and Rob Stewart in honor of Nancy who is my heart Noreen Stimac and Thomas Powers Aryna Swope and Phil Caruthers Anna Thomas Dan Thomas Kenneth Titley and John Schunhoff Cynthia Ulman and Lyle Novis CONTINUED }}

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2021-2022 Annual Giving Contributors $150-$249 Virginia Atherton Francisco Bracho Francine T. Cooper Cynthia and David Dunlop Steven Feig Jan and Mark Fisher Carole and Roger Hale Susan and Steven Hodges Clare Kiklowicz Mike Lang Mary Ann Makee Ann Millican Deborah Mintz Joan Petty Diana and Bijan Rezvani Lisa Roetzel and Alan Terricciano Susan Suriyapa and Luca Ferrero Susan and John Trauger Robin and James Walther Roberta Weiser Blau Bonnie Wright

$75-$149 Linda and Bob Attiyeh Serge Becker Kathy and Ken Bernstein Diane Bertoy and Jerome Maryniuk Soo Borson Barbara Britton and Ursula Britton Betye Burton in memory of Olin Barrett Carl Byron Edward S. Casey Lisa Cervantes Erica and William Clark Cathy Colloff Donald Crockett Dudley Dezonia Debra Fabiaschi Karen Fiske Etsu Garfias Margaret Gascoigne E. Louise Gooding Trust Lisa and Chris Hacker Jeff Hall Bret Hembd Paul Herman Camille and Kingsley Hines Stewart Hudnut Robert Huebsch Jeff Ingram Anne Johnstone Mark Kalow Margaret and John Kaufman Terry Knowles and Marshall Rutter Thomas Kren David Lea Karen Lewis Rachel Levin Mary and Robert Lynch Hannah Maclaren

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Donald Marsh Steven Moffic Dana Newman Caitlin Praetorius Kathleen Radcliffe Andrew Radford Debra Reed Bruce Robinson Maureen Robinson Alan Ross Lilit Sanasaryan Ruth Sayre Sandra and Charles Sledd Scott Sorrentino Elizabeth Spring and Michael Hince Rand Steiger Carole and Ray Sullivan Stephanie and Howard Tarre Judy and Art Vander Glen Wallick William Weirick Jan Wesley Patty Wilson Ed Yim Timothy Young Anna Zara

Up to $75 Anonymous Angela Aiena Patricia and Martin Angerman Christine Apostolina Beirne Beverly Archer Alice Asquith Edward Bailey Aviva Bergman Mary Biedebach Caryn and Charles Bosson Ruth and Steve Bramson Patrick Bucher Shelley Burgon Matthew Burrows Brian Calvin Kathryn Carlson Annete Colfax and Tom Wilson Dagny Corcoran/MOCA Walker Crewson Carin Dewhirst and William Knutson Robert Dewhirst Karen Eagans Susie Edberg and Allen Grogan Caryn Espo Judy Fish Carol Flanagan Arthur Flynn Michele Foster Kimberly Fox and Robert Fink Nancy Gallagher Andreas Georgi Carol and Paul Gibson Kathan and Anthony Glassman Richard Green

Julie Grist Nancy Hanks Kroy Mary Jo and James Hartle Lauren Hobratsch Alexa Hunter Jay Jazayeri Peter Jennings Lynn Julian Birgit Jung-Schmitt Cathy Kadison Megan Karsh William Knox Kathleen Kottler Ana Kozak Kevin Krave Diane Kravif Efrain Kristal Wyatt Lake Richard Linnett Julia C Long Adam Lowy Else Lundbye Sarah Madigan Richard McCurdy Sharon McGahan Angela and Jeffrey McGregor in memory of Olin Barrett Keith Mcmullen Hugh Mcternan Elizabeth Memel Raffi and Myrna Mesrobian Tom and Nancy Michali Audrey Pettyjohn in memory of Olin Barrett David Post Anna Proulx Christopher Reed Robert Ripps Emilie Robertson Irina Sayn-Wittgenstein Gerald Schuler Sharon Smith Edda Spielmann Susan Stiffleman and Paul Stanton Sarah Sullivan Cheryl Surana William Tucker Jill Tyler Neil Watt Liz Welch Karen Wilson Geoffrey Winterowd Joann Yabrof Anne Zimmerman Mark Zuckerman Many thanks to all our generous donors this year!

Every effort has been made to accurately list donors to the Festival ( 8/17/2021-5/15/2022).

If you have any questions or a correction, please contact Anna Wagner at 805 646 2094.

Ojai Festivals, Ltd. Is a 501 ( c )(3) non-profit tax exempt organization.

*Deceased

Innovation is Our Legacy Join Us in Inventing the Future The Ojai Music Festival is a creative laboratory for musical innovation - launching artists’ careers, creating new works, starting musical conversations, and weaving together music, artists, and loyal and engaged audiences in the enchanting Ojai Valley. The alchemy of Ojai is recognized and respected nationally and internationally – at a level far beyond its size and resources.

Your investment in the Festival’s Future Forward Campaign will: • Nurture Artistic Excellence • Cultivate a Creative Laboratory • Expand BRAVO Education and Community Programs Your support will influence music worldwide for the next 75 years.

For more information about the campaign, please scan this QR code:

The Ojai Music Festival’s first-ever $14 million comprehensive Future Forward Campaign seeks to secure and expand this work for the next 75 years.

Now is your moment to shape the future of contemporary music, to honor and secure musical innovation, push creative boundaries, build capacity, and to serve a wider audience.

Or contact Anna Wagner, Director of Philanthropy at (805) 646-3178, or awagner@ojaifestival.org.

Campaign Visionary Supporters Join us in thanking these visionary supporters who have participated in the early phase to launch this campaign.

Their support gives the Festival the financial freedom to innovate, build capacity, allow artists to realize their vision,

making a lasting impact on music worldwide for the next 75 years. We look forward to welcoming all our Festival Family to participate in the coming year.

$1,000,000+

$250,000 – 499,999

$50,000 – 99,999

Bernice and Wendell Jeffrey* Esther and Tom* Wachtell

Carolyn and Jamie Bennett Kathleen and Jerry Eberhardt Louie Hopkins and Douglas Mirk Hope Tschopik Schneider

Michele Brustin Kathy and James Drummy Stephan Farber, Sound Post Capital Ida and Glenn Mercer Nancy and Barry Sanders

$500,000 – 999,999 Marjorie Beale and William Meyerhoff Cathryn and Tom Krause The Shanbrom Family Foundation

$100,000 - 249,000 Ann and Olin* Barrett NancyBell Coe and Bill Burke The Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund Jerry and Terri Kohl David Nygren Donald Pattison

$25,000 – 49,999 Hyon Chough and Maurice Singer Ruth Eliel and Bill Cooney Ruth Gilliland and Arthur Rieman Jennie Prebor and Fred Fisher Raulee Marcus Ventura County Community Foundation

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2021-22 Annual Giving Contributors INSTITUTIONAL FUNDERS The Aaron Copland Fund for Music Amphion Foundation Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne Brooks Dry Cider E.J. Harrison & Sons John and Beverly Stauffer Foundation Montecito Bank and Trust National Endowment for the Arts Ojai Festival Women’s Committee

Ojai Valley School Oppenheimer Family Foundation The Ojai Vineyard Pacific Harmony Foundation Rotary Club of Ojai Smith-Hobson Foundation Ventura County Community Foundation Vinberia Selections

CORPORATE PARTNERS

CORPORATE PARTNERS

MEDIA PARTNERS BUSINESS COMMUNITY & MEDIA PARTNERS

edible

Ojai & Ventura County

MEDIA PARTNERS

edible

Ojai & Ventura County

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Lifetime Giving THANK YOU! Our steadfast supporters make adventurous and transcendent music possible - year after year.

$1,000,000+

$100,000-$249,999

$50,000-$99,999

Bernice and Wendell Jeffrey* Ojai Festival Women’s Committee Esther and Tom* Wachtell

Anonymous Sue Bienkowksi and Wang Lee Drs. Bruce Brockman and Bridget Tsao Michele Brustin California Arts Council Lainie* and Peter Cannon Hyon Chough and Maurice Singer Dunard Fund USA Ltd. Constance Eaton and William Hart Ruth Eliel and William Cooney Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation Richard S. Gould E.J. Harrison and Sons Linda Joyce Hodge Russ Irwin Jerry and Terri Kohl Jordan Laby Robert M. Light* Sharon McNalley The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Charles Millard III* Thomas W. and Jane Morris Nesbitt Foundation Ojai Valley Inn & Spa Ann and Harry Oppenheimer Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Linda and Ron Phillips Fred Rothenberg and Jackie Sherman Nancy and Barry Sanders Catherine and Barry Schifrin John and Beverly Stauffer Foundation Alice C. Tyler Perpetual Trust Ventura County Community Foundation Wallis Foundation Gary Wasserman and Charles Kashner Jane and Richard Weirick Nita Whaley and Don Anderson

Amphion Foundation Anonymous (2) Kate and Barney Barnhart William H. Brady, III* Lynn Bremer William Burr Renee Castagnola Castagnola Family Fund Richard Colburn* Joanne Ernst and James Collins The Aaron Copland Fund for Music Zoe and Donald Cosgrove* Janet Clough and Ara Guzelimian Robert C. Davis Jr. Barbara Delaune Warren Carlos Diniz* Christine and Sanford Drucker* Mary and Bill Duxler Fred Fisher and Jennie Prebor Betty Freeman* Eve Steele and Peter Gelles Bernard Gondos* Mary and Jon Hogen Margaret Bates and Scott Johnson Joan Kemper Dorothy Loebl Ginny Mancini* Raulee Marcus Pamela Melone Margaret and Fritz Menninger Ida and Glenn Mercer Metabolic Studio William Myers* Neubauer Family Foundation Shelby Notkin* Claire and David Oxtoby Jan and Alan* Rains Judith and Ronald* Rosen Rotary Club of Ojai Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting Abby Sher The Barbara Barnard Smith Fund for World Musics Shelley and Gregory Smith Wade Family Trust Marilyn Wallace and Maurice Chasse Jeanne C. Wanlass Wells Fargo Bank Ginger and John Wilson* Susanne and Blake Wilson Wood-Claeyssens Foundation

$500,000+ James Irvine Foundation The Walter Lantz Foundation Jill and Bill Shanbrom Shanbrom Family Foundation Smith-Hobson Foundation Cathryn and Thomas Krause

$250,000-$499,999 Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne Ann and Olin* Barrett Jamie and Carolyn Bennett NancyBell Coe and Bill Burke The Colburn Foundation Kathy and Jim Drummy Kathleen and Jerry Eberhardt Michael Gorfaine Gorfaine-Schwartz Agency Lennie and Bernie Greenberg Carolyn Huntsinger* Daniel Lewis E. Louise Gooding* Stuart Meiklejohn Anne and Stephen J.M. Morris National Endowment for the Arts David L. Nygren Donald Pattison Hope Tschopik Schneider

*Deceased

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Longtime Festival Attendees “The Ojai faithful – an audience prized for its open minds and congeniality – proved ever faithful.”

—Los Angeles Times

SINCE 1940s Joyce Epstein Diane and Louis Jackson The Steele Family SINCE

THANK YOU to our longtime Festival patrons attending 10 or more years. You are why we exist. We are grateful for your longstanding appreciation of adventurous music.

1950s

Elisa Callow Jeanne Ross Judith Salazar Sally Stevens Tony Thacher LaVonne Theriault Tony Voogd SINCE 1960s Sue-Ellen Case Betty and Robert Emirhanian Caroline and Ralph Grierson Mike Lang John May Rita Moran Laura Peck Abby Sher Mark Swed SINCE 1970s Dan Barham Beverlee Bickmore and Jim Kelly Barbara and John Cummings Robert C. Davis Jr. Richard Ginell/American Record Guide Kathan and Anthony Glassman Richard S. Gould Judith Holly Paul Homchick Jacaranda Music Cathy Kadison Susan and Joseph Miller James Spitser Mark Summa Stephen and Christy Sylvester Denise VanZago and C. M. Bowen Esther Wachtell Merrill L. Williams SINCE 1980s Marsia Alexander-Clarke Barney and Kate Barnhart Maureen Bauman and Isaac Malitz Drs. Bruce Brockman and Bridget Tsao Roberta Weiser Blau Elisabeth Clark NancyBell Coe and Bill Burke Michael Dunn Mary and William Duxler Gwen Erickson James Farber Jan and Mark Fisher Gloria and Tom Forgea Moey and Bruce Gilman Peggy Grossman and Josef Woodard Linda Joyce Hodge Jude Sharp and Jack Jackson

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Joan Kemper Edward and Nell McCombs Margaret and Fredrick Menninger Annat Provo Stephen Rochford Judith Rosen Jonathan Said Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting Jill and William Shanbrom Jude Sharp and Jack Jackson Noreen Stimac and Thomas Powers Anna Thomas Ralph E. Wiggen Susanne and Blake Wilson SINCE

1990s

Lisa and John Adair Marianne and Abdelmonem Afifi Lisa and Leslie Anderson Patricia and Martin Angerman Virginia Atherton Linda and Bob Attiyeh Kay Austen and Craig Houx Margaret and Danilo Bach Marjorie Beale and William Meyerhoff June and Shed Behar Jeanette and Joel Berkovitz Caryn and Charles Bosson Marie and Bruce Botnick Diana Burman Pamela Burton and Richard Hertz Eric Callow Renee Castagnola Deanna and Robert Chauls Debra Cohen and Thomas Stahl Francine T. Cooper Peter Corrigan Kathleen Crandall Donald Crockett Lynne Doherty and Helen Allen Richard Dolen Barbara and Alan Ducker Sharon and Robert Eaton Diane Eisenman Ruth Eliel and William Cooney Gerald Faris Diana Feinberg Kathryn Fellows Frank Finck Susan Foster Ruth Gilliland and Arthur Rieman Linda Granat Lennie and Bernie Greenberg Camille and Kingsley Hines Barbara and Anthony Hirsch Gary Hollander Essie and David Horwitz Anne B. Howells Marion Inchaustegui Cynthia Kaplan Terry Knowles and Marshall Rutter Joan Huang-Kraft Cathryn and Tom Krause Carol Krause Susan and David Kuehn

Longtime Festival Attendees Karen Lewis Richard Linnett Barbara and David Littenberg Amanda McBroom and George Ball Amanda and Linda McIntyre Gerald McIntyre Lisa McKinnon Joyce McWilliams Anne and Stephen J.M. Morris Wyant Morton Mary and Weston Naef Victoria Nightingale Cynthia Nunes and Barbara Nye Ann and Harry Oppenheimer Nancy Pepper Nancy Perloff and Robert Lempert Joan Peters and Peter Passell Linda and Ron Phillips Paris Poirier Stephen Pope Ruth and Rodney Punt Sylvia and Shlomo Raz Stephen C. Reilly Alice and Bob* Rene Penny Righthand Emilie Robertson Linda Rudell-Betts and John Betts Sara Sackner and Andrew Behar Nancy and Barry Sanders Heather and Bob Sanders Catherine and Barry Schifrin Barbara Schwartz and Thomas Moore Anita Rae Shapiro Marisa Silver and Ken Kwapis Ellen Sklarz and Peter Thielke Elizabeth Spring and Michael Hince Christine Steiner Evelyn Stern Kit Stolz Ann and Steven Sunshine Kenneth Titley and John Schunhoff Christine Upton Colleen Vivian Glen Wallick Barbara and Deric Washburn Neil Watt Susan and Michael Weaver Jane and Dick Weirick Arnold Weiss Nita Whaley and Don Anderson Beth Wickstrum Ed Yim Mary and Jerry Zinser SINCE 2000s Susan and Michael Addison Caroline Allen Joyce and Ronald Allin Sasha and William Anawalt Gregory Angsten Barbara Aran and Lawrence Hawley William Arnold Alice Asquith John Aufderheide Elizabeth Bachman and Bob Tallyn

Mary Baiamonte Karen Bailey Philip Baily Margaret Bates and Scott Johnson Marjorie Beale and William Meyerhoff Carolyn and Jamie Bennett Mary Bergen Karen and Michael Berk Susan Bienkowski and Wang C. Lee Judy and Merrill Blau Rosalyn Bloch Susan Bloom and Dirk Farner Kyle and Rodney Boone Francisco Bracho Bret Bradigan Barbara Bragonier Scott Brinkerhoff Thomas and Lily Brod Sandra Buechley Joseph Bulock Betye Burton Vanessa Butler Margaret Carey Suzanne R. Casey Lisa Cervantes Nancy and Martin Chalifour Tina Chappel and Thomas Lane Ruth Charloff Raelynn Clare Brooks Cochran Debra Cohen and Thomas Stahl Sheila and Sidney Cohn Ross Conner and Emmett Carlson Kyle and Stuart Crowner Esther da Costa Meyer and Christopher Hailey Nava and Gabriel Danovitch Juanita J. Davis and Dan Saucedo Jared Dawson Jane Deknatel and John Seddon Barbara Delaune Warren Carin Dewhirst and William Knutson Penny Donnelly Kathy and Jim Drummy Cynthia and David Dunlop Constance Eaton and Bill Hart Jerry Eberhardt Karen and Don Evarts Karen and Bill Evenden David Falconer Dana and Fred Fleet Jain Fletcher Barry Forman Kimberly Fox and Robert Fink Jan and Arnold Friedman Kenneth Fry Carol Garramone Margaret Gascoigne Andreas Georgi Michael Gorfaine Martha Groszewski Gina Gutierrez Carole and Roger Hale Mary Ann Hill and Laszlo Engelman Susan and David Hirsch Susan and Steven Hodges

Terry Hoffman Louie Hopkins and Douglas Mirk Naomi and Michael Inaba Jeff Ingram Russ Irwin Linda Kachel and David Katz Cecilia Kazol Diana Kelly Clare Kiklowicz Hannah and Marshall Kramer Ruth Lasell and Robert Bonewitz Kathryn Lawhun and Mark Shinbrot Lydia and Scott Lawson Lynda and Stan Levy Cheryl Lew Daniel Lewis Mary and Robert Lynch Raulee Marcus Geneva Martin and Patrick Garvey Mitchell Matsey and James Schultz Elizabeth and Paul McConnaughey Mary McConnel Christina and Todd McGinley Carolyn McKnight and Rajeev Talwani Gillian McManus and Chris Newell Sharon McNalley and family Pamela Melone Carla Melson Elizabeth Memel Thomas W. and Jane Morris Nomi Morris Sally Mosher Charles Mosmann Lena Muniz Sara Munshin Linda Nugent David L. Nygren Victoria and Thomas Ostwald Claire and David Oxtoby Donald Pattison Christian Perry Joan Petty Fred Fisher and Jennie Prebor Joyce A. Robinson Lisa Roetzel and Alan Terricciano Frederica and James Rosenfield Mary Rupp Peggy and John Russell Desy Safán-Gerard Louise Sandhaus and Michael Shapiro Ruth Sayre Leah and Norm Schweitzer Susan Scott Lucinda Setnicka Sandra and Harold Shapiro Fred Rothenberg Barbara Schwartz and Thomas Moore Jane and Lee Silver Shelley and Gregory Smith Kathy Solomon and Bob Burchman Edda Spielmann and Andrew Nichelson Gretel Stephens John Strysik Susan Suriyapa and Luca Ferrero Aryna Swope and Phil Caruthers Brett Tarnet

Alan Terakawa Alice Terrell and Alex Matich Gail Topping and George Berg Susan Tova and Lawrence Clevenson Libby and Sandy Treadwell Hope Tschopik Schneider Judy and Art Vander Anna Wagner Jill and John Walsh Robin and James Walther Jeanne C. Wanlass Andrea and Bernard White Geoffrey Winterowd Soni Wright Joann Yabrof Kathy and Larry Yee

We have made every effort to accurately list longtime attendees and sincerely regret any errors or omissions. If you have questions or a correction, please contact Anna Wagner at 805 646 2094.

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Matilija Society (formerly Encore Society) Our heartfelt thanks to the following supporters of the Ojai Music Festival Endowment:

THANK YOU! Matilija Society Members are generous donors to the Festival Endowment or have included the Festival in their estate plans.

Matilija Society Members help the Festival to be bold and pioneering in its artistic programs, while deeply influencing the Festival’s capacity to carry out its mission.

We gratefully acknowledge the following Matilija Society members who have included the Ojai Music Festival in their estate plans: Marjorie Beale and William Meyerhoff Carolyn and Jamie Bennett NancyBell Coe Sheila* and Don Cluff Lynne Doherty Kathleen and Jerry Eberhardt Theresa and Jeff Ferguson Ruth Gilliland and Arthur Rieman Richard S. Gould Frank* and Linda Granat

Cathryn and Tom Krause Louie Hopkins and Douglas Mirk Russ Irwin Raulee Marcus Anne and Stephen J.M. Morris David Nygren Don Pattison Laura and William* Peck Hope Tschopik Schneider Nita Whaley and Don Anderson

Should your name appear here? If so, please tell us about it!

We can tell the world or keep it quiet if you want to stay anonymous.

Either way, knowing about your plans will help us to better prepare for the future.

Making a planned gift is a wonderful way to show your support for the Ojai Music Festival, while achieving your own philanthropic, estate-planning, and financial goals. Planned gifts can benefit you and your loved ones today and, in the future, and allow the Festival to provide innovative musical programming, create groundbreaking new work, engage students and learners of all ages through arts education, while securing this creative laboratory for generations to come.

We encourage you to discuss your planned gift confidentially with the Ojai Music Festival. Please contact Anna Wagner, Director of Philanthropy at 805-646-3178 or awagner@ojaifestival.org

Kate and Barney Barnhart Marjorie Beale and William Meyerhoff June and Shed Behar Jamie and Carolyn Bennett Lerie Bjornstedt* Barbara Bowman and Sol de la Torre Bueno Witold Brabec William H. Brady, III* Marion and William Burke* Lainie* and Peter Cannon Ara Guzelimian and Janet Clough Sheila* and Don Cluff The Colburn Foundation Jennifer Coleman Molly Cook Joan Davidson Robert C. Davis, Jr Carlos Diniz* Linda Doherty and Helen Allen Christine and Sanford Drucker* Constance Eaton and William Hart Merilee and Samuel Eaton Kathleen and Jerry Eberhardt Mercedes H. Eichholz Yvette Ellis* Betty and Robert Emirhanian Harriette and Robert Erickson* Evans Foundation Theresa and Jeff Ferguson Lorraine Holve Finch Frank and Maudette Finck Fund Frances Fitting Ernest Fleischmann* Kate and Richard Godfrey E. Louise Gooding* Helene Gordon and Bill Blackburn Richard S. Gould Dennis Gould Virginia and Richard Gould* Linda and Frank* Granat Caroline and Ralph Grierson Ara Guzelimian and Janet Clough Ginger Harmon* Philip Heckscher Janette and Richard Hellmann Louie Hopkins and Douglas Mirk Natalia and Michael Howe Carolyn Huntsinger* Nancy Huntsinger Russ Irwin Betty Izant* Barbara Jackman Bernice and Wendell Jeffrey* Edith and Jack Jungmeyer* Jorjana and Roger Kellaway Joan Kemper Pat Kennedy* Margaret Krauss Muriel Lavender

Robert M. Light* Cynthia and Leon* Lindenbaum Andree Lindow Dorothy Loebl Jon Lovelace* Raulee Marcus Elise Marvin* Martha and Thomas May Zelda and Dennis McCarthy Quentin McKenna* Pamela Melone Margaret and Fritz Menninger Lolita and Joe Metscher Charles Millard III* Rachael and Philip Moncharsh Thomas W. and Jane Morris Anne and Stephen J.M. Morris William Myers* Sandi Nicholson Marianne and Philip Nielsen Victoria Nightingale Maj. Gen. Frank Norris David L. Nygren Donald Pattison Laura and Bill* Peck Barbara and Martin Pops Ruth and Rodney Punt Claire Rantoul Alice and Bob* Rene John Rex* Susan and Mark Robinson Merle and Hans Schiff Jill and Bill Shanbrom Helen and Edward Shanbrom* Dorothy and Richard Sheahan* Harry Sims* Ellen Sklarz and Peter Thielke Paula Spellman Melody and John Taft Sheila Tepper Margaret Thomas* Charlotte and Charles Thompson* Glenda Tippett* Hope Tschopik Schneider Ventura County Community Foundation Joan and William Vogel Patricia Weinberger* Jane and Richard Weirick Harriet Wenig* Joyce and Allan West Leslie Westbrook Nita Whaley and Don Anderson Julia and Marc Whitman Margaret and Philip Williams Susanne and Blake Wilson Helen Wolff Constance Wood Willard Wyman *Deceased

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BRAVO Music Education Program: The Excitement of Music IMPACT & ENGAGEMENT IN THE COMMUNITY 2022 BRAVO by the numbers: 3,575 Children Served 950 Workshops BRAVO EDUCATION COORDINATOR

Laura Walter EDUCATION COMMITTEE

The Ojai Music Festival BRAVO program believes in the practice of kindness, acceptance, and integrity through music. We create and connect to bring each other joy. The sublime activity of making music together creates an altered sense of time. It is an experience worth doing for itself.

These are the characteristics of play state, where flow and creativity flourish.

Play is one of the greatest equalizers we have in society. When we play together, we are equal participants; no child or adult has any advantage over any other. People who have play experiences together are much less likely to lash out at their peers, but rather work to come to a resolution.

Music features many opportunities for partnership and collaboration, as we get to practice listening to all ideas and negotiating solutions.

The song Bombalalom comes from the deep south of Brazil and means “our place of peace.”

Sharing our peaceful place builds attachment to our community, because it is something very personal about us, and we want to be known. The beauty of this song when sung in a round, or with other partner songs, or with its descant, helps us to appreciate each other.

Songs demonstrate how language sounds in ways that children can imitate and engage with.

When they are too young to read, they can still sing along, move their bodies, and draw how the music sounds, all while listening to the flow of the text and melody. When we sing Johnny Get Your Haircut, the children get an imaginary haircut and their friends love watching them look in the pretend mirror to admire themselves.

If one person gets two turns during the song, this is the best and luckiest day for them! It is the enactment of life, and the antidote for entitlement. Not everyone gets a turn, and this is one of our most authentic life lessons. The children adjust quickly and learn how to be happy and cheer when their classmates are chosen. It creates a community of learners, ready to support each other.

Our work with children helps us become aware of those around us, and how our actions are affecting them. This is gained by play, mutual experiences of sharing space, sound, and taking turns.

In music, we are not doing our work alone. We cooperate to create beauty. Bravo brings wonder and marvel to new generations all year long.

—LAURA WALTER, BRAVO education coordinator

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NancyBell Coe, Co-Chair Sandra Shapiro, Co-Chair Licity Collins Laura Denne Lynne Doherty Judy Fish Andy Gilman Gina Gutierrez Audrey McPherson Jane Roberts Kathleen Robertson Michelle Sherman Lillian Tally Joann Yabrof INSTITUTIONAL FUNDERS

Montecito Bank and Trust Ojai Festival Women’s Committee John and Beverly Stauffer Foundation Ojai Valley School - Barbara Barnard Smith Fund Rotary Club of Ojai ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE

Shelley Burgon Martha Highfill Kathleen Robertson Cameron Schubert Julie Tumamait-Stenslie Laura Walter Joann Yabrof BRAVO VOLUNTEERS

Helen Allen Babette and Bob Betsy Bachman Kathryn Carlson Laura Denne Lynne Doherty Debby Finley and Friends Fire on the Mountain Judy Fish Andy Gilman Anne Kaplan Karen Nelson

Cindy Pitou-Burton Jane Roberts Kathleen Robertson Joyce Robinson Madrigali Singers Ruby Skye Ray Sullivan Lillian Tally Julie Tumamait-Stenslie David Whalen Joann Yabrof

The Ojai Music Festival BRAVO program brings laughter, music, and play to local students and the Ojai community through educational workshops, interactive demonstrations, and free concerts.

BRAVO PROGRAMS INCLUDE

COMMUNITY EVENTS BRAVO’s free community concerts include the annual IMAGINE Concert. In collaboration with Ojai Valley School and the Barbara Barnard Smith Fund, more than 875 students and adults enjoy music and dance from around the world. In March, audience members were treated to a performance of Taiko Drumming

by Ojai O’Daiko. In addition, the Festival invites Ojai students and their parents to attend a Festival concert free of charge and presents concerts in the Libbey Park Gazebo open to the public.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS AND COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS

The BRIDGE program enriches third grade students’ musical world by having them interact with local seniors through music and song games. The children walk right up to a senior, shake their hand, introduce themselves, and ask them their name. When singing together, we can feel loved, connected, and cared for. There are more than a few tears of joy at these activities!

We work with the Ojai Unified School District to bring music education to local students and to provide interactive song and dance for residents of assisted living facilities.

EDUCATION THROUGH MUSIC

(ETM) brings interactive song and play to students in grades K-3, building empathy, intelligence, cooperation, and a feeling of connection to each other and the world.

Experiences with pitch and rhythm prepare them for further musical experience and increase language and math literacy.

Photos by Kirby Russell, Cindy Pitou Burton, Fred Rothenberg, and Misty Volaski

ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE conduct free workshops including music for harp, violin, celtic music, cello, and drumming, teaching students about history, geography, and world cultures through music.

Our MUSIC VAN this year visited eight local schools to encourage children to choose their favorite instrument to learn in their local school programs. Learning to play an instrument and making music together is a vital part of educating our future citizens.

This summer will be our fourth year for SUMMER MUSIC AND ARTS CAMP. Children and adults will sing, play, and explore art and storytelling in an interactive environment.

Through music and lots and lots of movement, we encourage imagination, questioning, collaboration, resilience, and determination.

Learn more about the program at www.OjaiFestival.org

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Ojai Music Festival Arts Management Internship Program

“My experience with the Ojai Music Festival was awesome. The environment is very uplifting, the other interns were fun to be around, and I’ve made a lot of connections! The staff that I worked with was very helpful and was there when I needed them. It was a lot of work, but worth it in the end.”

—EBONY LOCKWOOD, GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY

The Festival’s Arts Management Internship program welcomes college students and recent graduates to go behind the scenes working closely with the staff and production team, and gain invaluable hands-on experience for their future careers.

Festival interns have gone on to have successful careers in both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. Those who have gone on to work in the arts have done so at organizations across the country, including Ojai Music Festival, San Diego Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Early Music Guild of Seattle, and Voices of Change, as well as forged new paths as entrepreneurial performing artists and composers.

Some of the colleges and universities represented have included Berklee School of Music, Boston University, CalArts, California Lutheran University, Cal State University-Long Beach, Colburn Conservatory, Indiana University, Occidental College, San Diego State University, Sarah Lawrence College, Stanford University, USC, and Westmont College.

Steven Rothenberg Internship Fellow In 2011, Ojai Valley residents Ila and Fred Rothenberg generously provided the Festival with a fund to support the Festival’s growing internship program, which is dedicated in memory of their son, Steven Rothenberg. The 2022 Rothenberg Fellow is Guari Deshpande.

The Festival’s Arts Management Internship Program is made by possible by the generous support of Fred Rothenberg, in memory of Steven Rothenberg.

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Special Thanks The Ojai Music Festival wishes to express our deepest gratitude to the following: Ashly Piano Crafts/Dennis Ashly & Evan Austin Besant Hill School/Alex Smith Barbara Bowman Brooks Dry Cider Ed Brooks City of Ojai Community Memorial Hospital System Custom Printing Gold Coast Ambulance Company Integrity Wealth Advisors Joan Kemper LA Percussion Rentals/Dan & Abby Savell LS Promotions/Linda Schimmel Lorraine Lim Catering Music Academy of the West Nordhoff High School Music Department/Bill Wagner Ojai Beverage Company Ojai Chamber of Commerce Ojai Citrus Growers Ojai Presbyterian Church Ojai Valley Museum Ojai Valley School Ojai Vineyard Ojai Wesleyan Church/Pastor Lyn Thomas Pacific Western Bank Pure Wild Co. SANE Living Center/ Aubrey Balkind Louise Sandhaus Steinway & Sons LA/Benjamin Salisbury Ventura Rental Center Ventura’s Water Store Vinlberia Selections/Jill Cohen Westridge Market

The Best Investments Are The Ones We All Appreciate.

Northern Trust is proud to support Ojai Music Festival.

For more than 130 years, we’ve been meeting our clients’ financial needs while nurturing a culture of caring and a commitment to invest in the communities we serve. Our goal is to help you find perfect harmony.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

Andy Chou, Regional President 1485 East Valley Road, Suite 7 Santa Barbara, CA 93108 805-565-7861 or ac10@ntrs.com northerntrust.com WEALTH PLANNING | BANKING | TRUST & ESTATE SERVICES INVESTING | FAMILY OFFICE

130 W Ojai Ave

OJAI FESTIVAL WOMEN’S COMMITTEE

Heartfelt thanks to the Ojai Festival Women’s Committee for all they do in support of the Festival throughout the year.

Special thanks to those members who contribute meals for volunteers and host the Festival Lounge.

FESTIVAL HOUSING HOSTS

An important part of the Ojai Music Festival community is the housing hosts. They graciously open their homes every year to visiting artists, interns, and the production crew. Their wonderful hospitality makes each visit a memorable occasion for Festival guests. If you are interested in being a Housing Host, call Deirdre Daly at 805 646 2094 or email ddaly@ ojaifestival.org.

Learn about the history of the

Ojai Music Festival in our current exhibit.

Open

Friday, Saturday & Sunday 10 am – 4 pm

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Work With Us to Help Fight Climate Change

Volunteers

JOIN OUR RECYCLING TEAM, as we at Harrison, Gold Coast and Agromin take on the epic challenge of recycling EVERYTHING from organics including food and yard waste to glass, paper, metals and plastics. TEAMWORK is essential for the future of our planet.

VISIT US ONLINE to learn more.

1-800-41 TRASH

www.ejharrison.com Connect with us! @ejharrisoninc

Still leading the way, since 1989

805-642-9236

www.goldcoastrecycling.com

805-485-9200

www.agromin.com

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Many thanks to Festival Volunteers for their tireless efforts in helping make this year another tremendous success!

Gabriel Aubert Vicki Aubert Sophia Barber Diane Bertoy Tom Boyles Ursula Britton Barbara R Britton Kelly Carrol Jeannine Carter Jody Cooper Daphne DiFrancesco Joann Douk Payton Dugas Donna Elam Brenda Farrant Christine Fenn

Mary Fleming Jacqueline Francis Meg Goffredo Alan Gonzalez Jodine Hammerand Jill Helson Christina Kim Lane Faun Kime Fruzsina Ladanyi Jordana Lawrence Sophie Loire Stacey Miller McDermott Allison Monahan Kasey Moore Tisha Morris Karen Nelson

Peter Parziale Vickie Peters Joan Roberts Jane Roberts Judy Robles Jasmine Rocha Linda Schimmel Beverly Schuberth Sandra Shapiro Howard Sherer Carla Sherman Teresa Smith Lizzy TePaske Christine White Terry Wright as of May 16, 2022

If you are interested in volunteering at next year’s Festival, please email info@ojaifestival.org.

Staff ARA GUZELIMIAN Artistic and Executive Director GINA GUTIERREZ Managing Director/ Director of Marketing ANNA WAGNER Director of Philanthropy

FIONA DIGNEY Producer & Artistic Administrator AMBER YOUNG Operations & Events Manager BRYAN LANE Patron Services Manager

JEANNINE COBB Finance Manager KATHRYN CARLSON Patron Services Assistant Manager LAURA WALTER BRAVO Education Coordinator

Festival Production RYAN TOWNSEND STRAND Associate Producer KATHRYN STURCH Technical Production Manager MELISSA SOMRACK GORRIS Stage Manager JONATHAN BERGERON Production Assistant MARK GREY Sound Designer/ Chief Recording Engineer NATHAN GRATER Associate Sound Designer TOBY TITTLE Monitor Engineer MOMENTUM MEDIA/ VINCE PECCHI Lighting Provider JEFF CLINTON KEITH FENTON DAVID GUTHRIE ALEX HALL-MOUNSEY KIRK ZAHARRIS Lighting Assistants CLAIRE CLEARY Lighting Designer, Zalk Theater NICHOLAS HOUFEK Lighting Designer

GROPIOUS PRODUCTION/ WALTER PARK Live Streaming Production Company RAY SULLIVAN On-Site Libbey Park Manager RICHARD WARNER Park Operations Crew DEIRDRE DALY Housing Manager MARY ANN MAKEE Front of House Manager/ Covid-Safety Consultant MIRANDA GASENICA JANE ROBERTS TERRY WRIGHT Head Ushers MARCO MENDIZABAL Head Usher of Patron Admissions BRIAN TURNER Security Manager JONATHAN ABE ANGELA MCHALE SEAN MCHALE LARRY MCMILLAN MELISSA ROSSIN KAYLIE TURNER Security Team

MALORY TAYLOR Special Events Coordinator LYNN MALONE Suppers in the Park Coordinator KERI SETNICKA Social Media Coordinator MIMI ARCHIE KATHLEEN KENNEDY Graphic Design BITVISION TECHNOLOGY IT Providers JERRY MARYNIUK, MD Medical Tent Volunteer Coordinator SHEILA MCCUE Volunteer Recruitment Coordinator CASSIE FIELDS Volunteer Ambassador NATASHA LOGINOCHEVA VLADA LOGINOCHEVA Craft Services LORRAINE LIM CATERING Catering Services DOMINIQUE WRIGHT Intern Assistant Coordinator

LOUIS ALMARAZ Retail Buyer

GAURI DESHPANDE Rothenberg Fellow

LUKE TAYLOR Steinway Piano Technician

ELIZABETH SPILLER DOMINIQUE WRIGHT Retail Managers

RICHARD NEWSHAM Green Room Manager

CARLA FLORES Grab and Go Manager

MICHAEL COOLEY Rigger

SHEILA COHN Festival Concierge

STEEL DECK Stage Extension

TIMOTHY TEAGUE Photographer

DOOJIE SELINGER Stage Crew

DIEGO AZARTE JOSEPH NORRIS Parking

MADDI BAIRD BRENDAN BAKER ELIANA CHOI CARISSA CORRIGAN BRYCE COX CALEB DURANT MICHAEL FLORCZYK CHRISTINA GASPARICH JUAN GONZALEZ DENISE LOPEZ EVAN LOSAYA KANGCHEN NORBU STEPHAN SIMONS LANDON WILSON Interns

MIKE’S TECHNICAL SERVICES/ MIKE TREGLER Ancillary Event Engineer

TRISTAN COOK Live Stream Director

NIKKI SCANDALIOS Public Relations

Sanders & Sons Gelato

Come enjoy a scoop of fresh, locally made gelato on our patio!

334 E Ojai Avenue, Ojai, CA, 93023

Let us cater your next event! hello@sandersandsonsgelato.com

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Advertiser Index CULTURE & PERFORMING ARTS

MEDIA & MUSIC

9 IFC 53 1 75 12 32 25 31 123 11 125 4 7 33

17 45 118 49 27 15

2023 Ojai Music Festival canvas & paper CAMA The Hutchins Consort LA Dance Project Laguna Beach Music Festival Libbey Bowl Canyon Concert Series Music Academy of the West Ojai Holiday Home Tour & Marketplace Ojai Valley Museum Ojai Playhouse Ojai Playwrights Conference Ojai Studio Artists Pasadena Conservatory of Music UCSB Arts & Lectures

EDUCATION 53 71 5 19 21

Agora Foundation Besant Hill School Oak Grove School Ojai Valley School Villanova Preparatory School

FOOD & DRINK 114 29 108 71 3 125 85

Brooks Dry Cider Café Boku The Dutchess Farmer and the Cook The Ojai Vineyard Sanders & Sons Gelato The Vine

LODGING & LEISURE 75

805.485.3700 customprintinginc.com

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The Ojai Retreat & Inn

KUSC Nonesuch Records Ojai 101 Guide Ojai Quarterly Ojai Valley News WNYC/New Sounds

SERVICES 13 85 BC 126 124 26 20 19 57 75 123 118 41

LIV | Sotheby’s International Realty LIV | Sotheby’s International Realty/ Joan Roberts LIV | Sotheby’s International Realty/ Patty Waltcher Custom Printing E.J. Harrison & Sons Frederick Fisher and Partners Gables of Ojai Heritage Financial Integrity Wealth Advisors Montecito Bank & Trust Northern Trust SB Travel/Sheila Cohn Sound Post Capital

SHOPPING & GALLERIES 118 IBC 26 118 18 85 27 85 21

Gina Gutierrez, managing editor Thomas May, program book editor and annotator Doug Adrianson, June Behar, editorial assistants Kathleen Kennedy of Waller Design, graphic designer Printed by Custom Printing, Inc. Oxnard CA | www.CustomPrintingInc.com

Barbara Bowman Boutique Bart’s Books Blanche Sylvia Cercana Gunays Shop Noted (Stationery, Cards & Gifts) OVA Arts Gallery Porch Gallery Ventura County Potters’ Guild

2022 Ojai Music Festival program Ojai Festivals, Ltd. © All rights reserved.

PO Box 185 Ojai CA 93024 805 646 2094 info@ojaifestival.org www.OjaiFestival.org

Patty Waltch e r 25 ye a r s o f e x p e r i e n ce m a tc h i n g p e o p l e a n d p ro p e r t y i n t h e O j a i Va l l e y

O JAI ALI SAL E STATE & VI NEYARD

This gated, 20-acre vineyard estate features a luxurious 2br/2.5ba Italian farmhouse with amazing 360-degree views. The beautifully manicured grounds include a wide variety of California-native plants and gravel paths that wind through a family orchard.

The active vineyard is the source for Ojai Alisal’s award-winning wines.

OjaiAlisalEstate.com Offered at $3,825,000

I will help you discover the home that brings peace to your mind and heart ( 8 0 5 ) 3 40-3774 ~ pa ttyw a ltc her. c om