Festivals

What is it that makes the Ojai Music Festival special?

For four days each June, the Ojai Music Festival becomes the summer home for exceptional artists, who are given the freedom to create daring programs that present the familiar and unfamiliar in fresh, unusual ways. This lively creative process draws audiences into an immersive experience in the enchanting setting of the Ojai Valley that encompasses stimulating lectures and engaging concerts, and ranges from early morning sunrise performances on Ojai hilltops to the stillness of late night concerts in Libbey Bowl. Each day welcomes music lovers, community members, and the culturally curious to discover joyful, moving, and surprising moments in an iconic event that has endured for close to seven decades.

The 72nd Festival with Music Director Patricia Kopatchinskaja will take place June 7-10. 

Use the links below to explore more about the Ojai Music Festival:
Re-experience the 2017 Festival or Browse our live stream archives
View photos from past Festivals
Learn more about present/past artists and composers
Read about our incredible Music Directors

Proving once again that for the truly fearless, nothing is impossible, the 2017 Ojai Music Festival effectively erased the boundaries between jazz, classical, traditional Indian music, and more over the course of four sound-packed days in and around Libbey Bowl.
– Santa Barbara Independent 

“Ojai Music Festival has been raising a finely calibrated ruckus each spring since 1947…. To attend Ojai is to enter a happily topsy-turvy world where longtime patrons are as avid for new music as they are for classic repertory.”
– The New Yorker

There is a very special spirit of collaboration here, fostered in part by the gorgeous natural setting and also by the friendly engagement of everyone involved.”
–  Dawn Upshaw, 2011 Music Director

“Ojai is like a dream.  For me personally, it was a great reality where my two cultures met. I couldn’t believe that I was staying right there on the famous Ventura beach, the heart and soul of California surfing. And there up the hill in Ojai was the heart and soul of American great music-making.”
– Richard Tognetti (Australian Chamber Orchestra)

“Looking back over Ojai history, the Festival has a history of giving people a chance before they become really recognized for their talents…And there is the unusual mingling with people. Real people. The absence of slickness. No pretense. No feigning or pretending. That is refreshing.”
– Kent Nagano, 1986, 2004 Music Director

“Ojai has earned its reputation as one of the most important events on the annual American cultural calendar.”
– Gramophone