OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL RECEIVES
AN ARTS AND CULTURE INVESTMENT FUND GRANT FROM THE COUNTY OF VENTURA AND VENTURA COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION
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(July 30, 2024 – OJAI CA) — The Ojai Music Festival is pleased to announce it is a recipient of the Arts and Culture Investment Fund Grant from the County of Ventura and the Ventura County Community Foundation.
The $75,000 grant will support the internationally recognized annual Ojai Music Festival, which presents classical and contemporary music featuring today’s most innovative and celebrated artists; an expansion of its year-round activities, that will include public performances and partnerships in the Ojai community and the broader Ventura County; and the broadening of its BRAVO education program in public schools with SCORE, a music composition class for high school students.
“We are deeply grateful to the County and the Board of Supervisors for this very generous and meaningful support,” said Ara Guzelimian, Artistic and Executive Director of the Ojai Music Festival. “This marks an important milestone moment in the cultural life of Ventura County, recognizing and supporting the ever-growing range of vibrant arts activity in our communities.”
The Arts and Culture Investment Fund is Ventura County’s first dedicated arts and culture grant program, which as approved by the Board of Supervisors as part of the County’s 2023 Recovery Plan to support ongoing recovery from the pandemic. Funding supports both nonprofit arts and culture organizations and artists based in Ventura County. For more information and the Arts and Culture Investment Fund and a complete list of grant recipients, please visit www.ventura.org/arts.
About the Ojai Music Festival
The Ojai Music Festival represents an ideal of adventurous, open-minded, and openhearted programming in the most beautiful and welcoming of settings, with audiences and artists to match its aspirations. Entering its 79th year, the Festival remains a creative laboratory for thought-provoking musical experiences, bringing together innovative artists and curious audiences in an intimate, idyllic outdoor setting. Each Festival’s narrative is guided by a different Music Director, whose distinctive perspectives shape programming — ensuring energized festivals year after year.
Throughout each year, the Ojai Music Festival contributes to Southern California’s cultural landscape with in-person and online programming as well as robust educational offerings that serve thousands of public-school students and seniors. The organization’s apex is the world-renowned Festival, which takes place over four days in the breathtaking Ojai Valley in Ventura County. During the immersive experience, a mingling of the most curious take part in concerts, symposia, free community events, and social gatherings. The intimate Festival weekend, considered a highlight of the international music summer season, welcomes up to 5,000 patrons and reaches exponentially more audiences worldwide through streaming and broadcasts of concerts and discussions throughout the year.
Since its founding in 1947, the Ojai Music Festival has presented expansive programming in unusual ways with an eclectic mix of new and rarely performed music, as well as refreshing juxtapositions of musical styles. Through its signature structure of the Artistic Director appointing a different Music Director each year, Ojai has presented a “who’s who” of music including Mitsuko Uchida, Rhiannon Giddens, AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company), Vijay Iyer, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and Barbara Hannigan in recent years; throughout its history, featured artists have included Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kent Nagano, Pierre Boulez, John Adams, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Spano, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, David Robertson, Eighth Blackbird, George Benjamin, Dawn Upshaw, Leif Ove Andsnes, Mark Morris, Jeremy Denk, Steven Schick, Matthias Pintscher, and Peter Sellars. The 79th Ojai Music Festival, June 5 to 8, 2025, will welcome flutist Claire Chase as Music Director.
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