2013 Festival Schedule
Jump to day: Thursday June 6 | Friday June 7 | Saturday June 8 | Sunday June 9
Download a PDF of the 2013 Festival Program Notes >>
THURSDAY JUNE 6, 2013
OJAI TALKS Part I: “Choreographer as Musician”
OJAI TALKS Part II: “Breaking Ground with The Bad Plus”
Part I: 1:00 – 2:00pm | Part II: 2:30 – 3:30pm
Ojai Valley Community Church
Mark Morris, The Bad Plus, Ara Guzelimian, moderator
Choreographer as Musician: Join Ara Guzelimian for a revealing discussion with Music Director Mark Morris as he shares his expansive musical life and work with audiences.
Breaking Ground with The Bad Plus: The Bad Plus has been changing the way audiences perceive music – whether it’s jazz, rock or classical. Meet these trailblazing artists as they talk about their music-making with Ara Guzelimian.
OJAI FILM: Falling Down Stairs
(Canada 1998, Director Barbara Willis Sweete)
4:00 – 5:00pm | Ojai Playhouse
This documentary follows renowned cello virtuoso Yo-Yo Ma embarking on an intense year-long collaboration with Mark Morris, which culminates in a performance of J.S. Bach’s Third Suite for Unaccompanied Cello. Film courtesy of Rhombus Media.
EVENING CONCERT
8:00 – 9:30pm | Libbey Bowl
The Bad Plus, jazz trio
Reid Anderson, bass
Ethan Iverson, piano
David King, drums
Original music from Made Possible
Igor Stravinsky: Rite of Spring (arr. The Bad Plus)
Last year’s Festival closed with Rite of Spring in a Stravinsky-sanctioned arrangement for two pianos. This year, The Bad Plus opens the Festival with the same work, but as Stravinsky could never have imagined. Hear this Rite along with genre-bending compositions by this fiercely original jazz trio.
OPENING NIGHT PARTY + SOCIAL DANCING
10:00pm | Ojai Art Center
Learn from and dance with the best – join Mark Morris and his dancers in the waltz, polka, reel and more at this exclusive donor and subscriber event.
FRIDAY JUNE 7, 2013
COMMUNITY EVENT: Get Fit with MMDG!
9:00 – 10:00am | Libbey Bowl, Flagpole Lawn
Combine fun and fitness to jump-start your day. Work out with dancers from the Mark Morris Dance Group. Wear comfortable shoes or sneakers. FREE (open to the public).
OJAI TALKS Part I: “Lou Harrison and California”
OJAI TALKS Part II: “John Luther Adams and Place”
Part I: 1:00 – 2:00pm | Part II: 2:30 – 3:30pm
Ojai Valley Community Church
SOLD OUT
Lou Harrison and California: Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times classical music critic, and Eva Soltes, director of the documentary Lou Harrison: A World of Music, join Ara Guzelimian to discuss the fascinating life and music of composer Lou Harrison.
John Luther Adams and Place: John Luther Adams is an environmentalist and composer whose life and work are deeply rooted in the natural world. In this in-depth interview, he shares his deep curiosity for exploring the territory of “sonic geography” – that region between place and culture…between environment and imagination.
John Luther Adams’ appearance at the Ojai Music Festival is funded in part through New Music USA’s MetLife Creative Connections program.
OJAI EXTRA: Gamelan Performance
5:00 – 5:45pm | Libbey Park Gazebo
Gamelan Sari Raras
Bring your own lawn chairs. FREE (open to the public)
LOU HARRISON: Gending Alexander
NARTOSABDHO: Larang Kagok Semarang
LOU HARRISON: Lancaran Samuel and Ladrang Samuel
BALINESE: Sulendro
JAVANESE: Jineman Uler Kambang (pélog nem)
LOU HARRISON: In Honor of Mark Twain
JAVANESE: Ladrang Pangkur (pélog nem)
Composers from Debussy to Messiaen have been mesmerized by what Lou Harrison called the “golden polyphonies” of the gamelan. Join Gamelan Sari Raras for a fascinating introduction to this enchanting world, as well as three of Harrison’s own works for gamelan.
EVENING CONCERT I
7:00 – 8:00pm | Libbey Bowl
Mark Morris Dance Group
American String Quartet
MMDG Music Ensemble
Mosaic and United (Henry Cowell: String Quartets No. 3 and No. 4)
Empire Garden (Charles Ives: Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano)
The wit, grace and refined musicality that embody Mark Morris’ choreographic invention are on display in this pair of concerts by the Mark Morris Dance Group. Kinetically robust, emphatically musical and profoundly human, these dances to the music of Harrison, Cowell, Ives and barber are not to be missed. In between the concerts, Yegor Shevtsov performs Satie and Cage on toy piano at the Libbey Park Playground.
OJAI EXTRA
8:15 – 8:45pm | Libbey Park Playground
Yegor Shevtsov, toy piano
FREE (open to the public)
ERIK SATIE:
Menus propos enfantins
Enfantillages pittoresques
Peccadilles importunes
JOHN CAGE: 4’33”
JOHN CAGE: Suite for Toy Piano
EVENING CONCERT II
9:00 – 10:00pm | Libbey Bowl
Mark Morris Dance Group
MMDG Music Ensemble
Excursions (Samuel Barber: Excursions for the piano)
Jenn and Spencer (Henry Cowell: Suite for Violin and Piano) – West Coast Premiere
Grand Duo (Lou Harrison: Grand Duo for Violin and Piano)
The wit, grace and refined musicality that embody Mark Morris’ choreographic invention are on display in this pair of concerts by the Mark Morris Dance Group. Kinetically robust, emphatically musical and profoundly human, these dances to the music of Harrison, Cowell, Ives and barber are not to be missed. In between the concerts, Yegor Shevtsov performs Satie and Cage on toy piano at the Libbey Park Playground.
OJAI LATE NIGHT
10:30pm – 11:30pm | Libbey Bowl
Ethan Iverson, piano
Yulia Van Doren, soprano
FREE
JOHN CAGE: Four Walls
This dance drama, written in 1944 for Merce Cunningham, is a mesmerizing essay in sound, silence, repetition, and gradual change that captures the inner workings of an uneasy mind – you won’t want to miss it.
DONOR EVENT: Open Mic Night with Mark Morris
11:30pm | Agave Maria’s Restaurant
Sing your heart out at this late night karaoke-style party with Mark Morris and The Bad Plus.
OJAI SUNRISE
8:00 – 9:15am | Besant Hill School, Two Tree Knoll
SOLD OUT
red fish blue fish, percussion ensemble
JOHN LUTHER ADAMS: Strange and Sacred Noise
Strange and Sacred Noise, as John Luther Adams has observed, is not about sending but receiving messages, not music as communication but as communion. Join a quartet of percussionists on a journey to “places for listening, places in which to experience the elemental mystery of noise,” all on a magical hilltop in Upper Ojai.
COMMUNITY EVENT: Get Fit with MMDG!
9:00 – 10:00am | Libbey Bowl, Flagpole Lawn
Combine fun and fitness to jump-start your day. Work out with dancers from the Mark Morris Dance Group. Wear comfortable shoes or sneakers. FREE
MORNING CONCERT
11:00am – 12:30pm | Libbey Bowl
Ojai In-C Players
TERRY RILEY: In C
This is it, where it all started, Terry Riley’s founding document of Minimalism. A single page, 53 phrases, a steady pulse. This revolution for any number of instruments and players is all about time. And now, nearing 50, it comes at last to Ojai.
OJAI FILM: Lou Harrison: A World of Music
(USA, 2012, Director Eva Soltes)
1:30 – 3:15pm | Ojai Playhouse
This documentary offers a rare glimpse into the intimate personal struggles and artistic courage of the legendary American composer, writer and activist Lou Harrison. Harrison’s unbridled curiosity and command of musical language produced one of the great trans-cultural legacies of the 20th century.
Directed by filmmaker and music producer Eva Soltes, who will introduce the film, this feature-length documentary is drawn from over 25 years and 300 hours of performances, rehearsals and interviews conducted with Harrison and his contemporaries.
OJAI FILM: Salomé
3:45 – 5:00pm | Ojai Playhouse
SOLD OUT
Salomé, an avant-garde adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play, starring Alla Nazimova, was one of the first art films to be made in the U.S. and is presented here with live musical accompaniment by The Bad Plus.
COMMUNITY EVENT: Dance with MMDG
4:00 – 5:00pm | Ojai Art Center
Put on your dancing shoes and learn steps from Mark Morris Dance Group dancers. Wear flat, comfortable shoes. FREE (open to the public).
OJAI EXTRA: Gamelan Performance
6:00 – 6:45pm | Libbey Park Gazebo
Gamelan Sari Raras
Please bring your own lawn chairs or blankets. FREE (open to the public)
LOU HARRISON: Lancaran Daniel
LOU HARRISON: Gending Pak Chokro
BALINESE: Sekar Ginotan (gender wayang)
LOU HARRISON: Philemon and Baukis
JAVANESE: Jineman Eler Kambang (sléndro sanga)
LOU HARRISON: Bubaran Robert
When Lou Harrison first experienced a gamelan concert in 1939, this beguiling universe of resonant sound was a confirmation of his most deeply held beliefs about the sources of music. This second gamelan performance combines traditional gamelan repertoire with works by Harrison.
EVENING CONCERT
8:00 – 10:00pm | Libbey Bowl
MMDG Music Ensemble
American String Quartet
Joshua Gersen, conductor
Colin Fowler and Yegor Shevtsov, piano
LOU HARRISON: Suite for Symphonic Strings
JOHN LUTHER ADAMS: for Lou Harrison
Lou Harrison’s Suite for Symphonic Strings is an absorbing study in contrasts and a compelling example of his many-sided musical persona. Adams’ for Lou Harrison an evocation of the kind of cosmic gamelan that Harrison would have loved.
OJAI LATE NIGHT
10:30 – 11:30pm
red fish blue fish, percussion ensemble
FREE (reservations required)
JOHN CAGE: Six
CAGE/LOU HARRISON: Double Music
CAGE: Six
CAGE: Credo in US
CAGE: Inlets
CAGE: Third Construction
Some pieces are structured, others are not, but these six classic percussion works explore what delighted Cage most: “the activity of sound.”
OJAI SUNRISE
8:00 – 8:45am | Meditation Mount
red fish blue fish, percussion ensemble
A shuttle will be provided at Boccali’s. FREE (reservations required)
JOHN LUTHER ADAMS: songbirdsongs
Over the heads of humans, ears wired for sound, eyes fixed on little glowing boxes, there is another world of sights and sounds that John Luther Adams evokes in his music. Reconnect with nature in this early morning, outdoor performance of songbirdsongs for piccolos, percussion, and an unrehearsed chorus of Ojai twitters.
COMMUNITY EVENT: Get Fit with MMDG!
9:00 – 10:00am | Libbey Park, Flagpole Lawn
Combine fun and fitness to jump-start your day. Work out with dancers from the Mark Morris Dance Group. Please wear comfortables shoes or sneakers. FREE (open to the public).
MORNING CONCERT
11:00 – 1:00pm | Libbey Bowl
Yulia Van Doren, soprano
Jamie Van Eyck, mezzo-soprano
Douglas Williams, baritone
Colin Fowler, organ
American String Quartet
Mark Morris, conductor
Songs by Henry Cowell and Charles Ives
CHARLES IVES: String Quartet No. 2
CARL RUGGLES: Exaltation (arr. Colin Fowler)
Discussions, Arguments, and a View from the Mountain. That, in a nutshell, is how Charles Ives described his Second String Quartet. It might well describe this unruly flock of composers, who flew in scattered formation around Ives, taking bearings from – and on occasion issue with – him and each other, each on wing toward an independent summit.
Some of Cowell’s works are unpublished and are performed by permission of The David and Sylvia Teitelbaum Fund, Inc., as successors to Henry and Sidney Cowell.
EVENING CONCERT I
4:30 – 5:30pm | Libbey Bowl
red fish blue fish
Colin Fowler, piano
Joshua Gersen, conductor
CHARLES IVES: Variations on America
HENRY COWELL: Prelude for Organ
VINCENT PERSICHETTI: Sonatine
WILLIAM BOLCOM: La Cathedrale engloutie (Rock of Ages)
HENRY COWELL: Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 14
LOU HARRISON: Concerto for Organ with Percussion Orchestra
Ives, Cowell, Harrison – three generations of explorers who mapped the terrain of their own imagination, fusing worlds, creating rituals for unknown sacraments, writing anthems for hybrid realms. They conjure, through sound, music that embraces the fullness of what we may yet become.
EVENING CONCERT II
6:30-7:30pm | Libbey Bowl
MMDG Music Ensemble
red fish blue fish
Gamelan Sari Raras
Yulia Van Doren, soprano
Jamie Van Eyck, contralto
Colin Fowler, piano
Joshua Gerson, conductor
HENRY COWELL: Heroic Dance (for Martha Graham)
HENRY COWELL: Atlantis
LOU HARRISON: Fugue for Percussion
LOU HARRISON: Concerto for Piano with Javanese Gamelan
Ives, Cowell, Harrison – three generations of explorers who mapped the terrain of their own imagination, fusing worlds, creating rituals for unknown sacraments, writing anthems for hybrid realms. They conjure, through sound, music that embraces the fullness of what we may yet become.
Some of Cowell’s works are unpublished and are performed by permission of The David and Sylvia Teitelbaum Fund, Inc., as successors to Henry and Sidney Cowell.