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.

Pierre Boulez and Lawrence Morton at the 1984 Ojai Festival —ARA GUZELIMIAN

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

Lawrence Morton with Michael Tilson Thomas

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