What Six Blackbirds Hatched

Over the years, this valley of olive trees and art galleries some 90 miles northwest of Los Angeles has played host to such distinguished visitors as Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland and Pierre Boulez, with many other prodigiously talented, if less famous, musicians among the mix. And all of them -- since the mid-1950s, anyway -- have performed in a small, municipal-park band shell grandly named the Libbey Bowl, the primary venue of the Ojai Music Festival, which celebrated its 63rd iteration earlier this month. Read more...

Oh, the Highs of Ojai

Although we never really know where music is headed, sometimes we think we do. This is one of those times. The Chicago-based new music sextet eighth blackbird took over this year’s Ojai Music Festival in Libbey Bowl for four days and packed it full with more and more varied music (and music theater) than ever before in the quirky, famous festival’s 63-year history. Read more...

eighth blackbird and other new music at Ojai Music Festival

Although we never really know where music is headed, sometimes we think we do. This is one of those times. The Chicago-based new music sextet eighth blackbird took over this year’s Ojai Music Festival in Libbey Bowl for four days and packed it full with more and more varied music (and music theater) than ever before in the quirky, famous festival’s 63-year history. Read more...

Ojai 2009: The Kids Are All Right

For 63 years, the Ojai Music Festival has been a West Coast beacon of new music. Its system of changing music directors -- Stravinsky one year, Copland another, Boulez, Adams and, this year’s genre-busting choice, eighth blackbird [sic] – continues to provide a kind of built-in guarantee of self-renewal, from season to season. Read more...

Ojai Music Festival's 'Slide' has both wit and complexity

Shifting in and out of focus like the photographic images at its core, Steve Mackey and Rinde Eckert’s “Slide” held the Ojai Music Festival audience’s attention for more than an hour Friday night. The world premiere of the rocking and ruminative concoction, co-commissioned by the festival, brought to the stage eighth blackbird, the new music ensemble serving as the festival’s music director this year, along with Mackey and his electric guitar and librettist Eckert as actor and singer.
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Shock, shake of the new: The weekend's 63rd annual Ojai
Music Festival offering made for a fresh fest

As the last clanging of Dutch composer Louis Andriessen's "Workers Union" rang out Sunday night at Ojai's Libby Bowl -- the climax of a five-hour marathon finale to this year's 63rd annual Ojai Music Festival -- a certain dualistic impression settled over the dedicated festgoer. This year's four-day festival, organized by heroic contemporary chamber ensemble eighth blackbird, was somehow perfectly fresh and in keeping with the fest's celebrated history. Brazen youth and respectful tradition got along, and famously. Read more...