2014 Festival Schedule
Jump to day using the links below:
Thursday, June 12 | Friday, June 13 | Saturday, June 14 | Sunday, June 15
THURSDAY, JUNE 12
Part I: 1:00-2:00pm | Part II: 2:00-3:30pm
Ojai Valley Community Church (907 El Centro St.)
Part I: Festival Overview with Jeremy Denk
Part II: An Ensemble for the 21st Century: The Musician’s View
with Eric and Colin Jacobsen, founders of The Knights
Ara Guzelimian, Ojai Talks director
4:00-5:30pm | Ojai Playhouse (145 E. Ojai Ave.)
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
A film by François Girard
8:00-10:00pm | Libbey Bowl
Jeremy Denk, piano
Uri Caine Ensemble
Selections from Janáček’s On An Overgrown Path interwoven with short works by Schubert
URI CAINE: Mahler Re-Imagined – The music of Gustav Mahler viewed through Uri Caine’s lens of transformation and improvisation
Uri Caine’s appearance is generously supported by Ruth L. Eliel & William N. Cooney
Juxtaposing the charm of Schubert’s Ländler and Moment musicaux with excerpts from Janáček’s wrenching cycle On an Overgrown Path sets the stage for Uri Caine’s Mahler, a musical journey that re-imagines the composer’s daring mixture of profound and profane in the music contexts – from jazz to klesmer – of our time.
10:00pm | Ojai Art Center (113 S. Montgomery St.)
Ojai Member Benefit >>
FRIDAY JUNE 13, 2014
1:00-4:00pm | Ojai Valley Community Church (907 El Centro St.)
The Classical Style: Impact and Implications
Part I: Jeremy Denk on Charles Rosen
Part II: An in-depth panel discussion on the award-winning book, The Classical Style, with Timo Andres and Don M. Randel
Part III: Mary Birnbaum, director, and Steven Stucky, composer
The Friday Ojai Talks are in memory of Charles Rosen
Ara Guzelimian, Ojai Talks director
6:00-6:45pm | Libbey Park Gazebo
Hudson Shad, vocal quartet
Weill For A While – Songs by Kurt Weill and others
FREE
8:00-10:00pm | Libbey Bowl
Brooklyn Rider
The Knights
Singers TBA
Mary Birnbaum, director
Robert Spano, conductor
HAYDN: String Quartet in G minor, Op. 74, No.3, “Rider”
JEREMY DENK / STEVEN STUCKY: The Classical Style: An Opera (of Sorts)– WORLD PREMIERE
So three chords walk into a bar… Find out what happens in the world premiere of The Classical Style: An Opera (of Sorts) a comic opera by Jeremy Denk and Steven Stucky inspired by Charles Rosen’s classic study of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, with a curtain raiser – Haydn’s Rider Quartet – performed by Brooklyn Rider.
‘The Classical Style’ is co-commissioned by the Ojai Music Festival, Cal Performances in Berkeley, Carnegie Hall, and the Aspen Music Festival and School. The Ojai Festival premiere is supported through a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Watch Artistic Director Tom Morris describe The Classical Style >>
10:30-11:30pm | Libbey Bowl
Uri Caine Sextet
The music of George Gershwin, including Rhapsody in Blue, reimagined and improvised by Uri Caine
FREE
SATURDAY, JUNE 14
8:00-9:00am | Zalk Theater, Besant Hill School
Brooklyn Rider
PHILIP GLASS: Quartet No. 2 “Company”
SCHUBERT: Quarttetsatz
EVAN ZIPORYN: Qi – Garden
COLIN JACOBSEN:Three Miniatures
Brooklyn Rider casts a wide net in whose embrace one finds composers of different times and cultures. Schubert’s taut Quartettsatz anchors this sunrise concert, which includes works by Evan Ziporyn and Colin Jacobsen inspired by the music of Asia and the Middle East, as well as the haunting quartet Philip Glass wrote for a staged performance of Samuel Beckett’s novella, Company.
11:00am-12:45pm | Libbey Bowl
Jennifer Frautschi, violin
Jeremy Denk, piano
IVES: Sonatas for Violin and Piano, Nos. 1-4 (complete)
Charles Ives’ sonatas for violin and piano – heard all too rarely and almost never together in a single concert – are shot through with fond recollections of his childhood and the world his parents knew. These homespun verities, hymns, and patriotic tunes, often embedded in dissonant harmonies and rhapsodic textures, inevitably puncture then transcend the stiff pretensions of “High Art”.
1:00-3:00pm | Ojai Valley Inn & Spa (905 Country Club Dr.)
Celebrate and honor longtime attendees with Festival friends. Plus, Christopher Hailey interviews Storm Large. $55/person
2:30pm | Ojai Playhouse (145 E. Ojai Ave.)
The Magic Flute
A film by Ingmar Bergman
6:00-7:00pm | Libbey Bowl
Jeremy Denk, piano
Timo Andres, piano
Alex Sopp, flute
Colin Jacobsen, violin
Miranda Sielaff, viola
Eric Jacobsen, cello
The Knights
Eric Jacobsen, conductor
ANDREW NORMAN: Light Screens
MOZART / TIMO ANDRES: Coronation Concerto Re-composition
Yes, we’ve heard it before – or have we? This is the enchanting disorientation of Timo Andres’ re-composition of Mozart’s “Coronation” Concerto that makes us re-think what we thought we knew. Andrew Norman’s piece, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s stained glass window designs, merges music and architecture.
8:00-10:00 pm | Libbey Bowl
Storm Large, vocalist
Hudson Shad Quartet
The Knights
Eric Jacobsen, conductor
BOCCHERINI (arr. The Knights): String Quintet in C major Op. 30, No. 6 – “La musica Notturna delle Strade di Madrid”
IVES: Three Places in New England (1930 version)
FELDMAN: Madame Press Died Last Week at Ninety
STOCKHAUSEN (arr. Caroline Shaw): Tierkreis – Leo
WEILL: Seven Deadly Sins (in English)
The innovative orchestral collective The Knights takes us all over the map in a package tour that includes a night on the town with Luigi Boccherini, Three Places in New England, sightings of Feldman’s cuckoo, Stockhausen’s lion, and a road trip with Kurt Weill, whose deliciously wicked Seven Deadly Sins will feature wickedly delicious performances by Storm Large and Hudson Shad.
10:30-11:15 pm | Libbey Bowl
Jennifer Frautschi, violin
Members of The Knights
– Max Mandel, viola
– Joseph Gramley, percussion
– Steven Beck, celesta
Ojai Festival Singers
Robert Spano, conductor
J.S. BACH: Violin Sonata No. 3 in C major, BWV 1005
FELDMAN: Rothko Chapel
FREE
Two soliloquies usher in the night. Bach’s third unaccompanied violin sonata begins with a single, hesitant gesture and ends in a burst of unbounded energy. In between an awe-inspiring fugue and a nobly reserved Largo that can seem positively loquacious when followed by the movingly austere viola solo of Feldman’s Rothko Chapel.
11:30pm | Agave Maria’s Restaurant & Cantina
Storm Large, vocalist
Grace Fong, piano
Storm Large performs her own “Lounge-Core Mashup” of old and new favorites
SUNDAY, JUNE 15
8:00-9:00am | Meditation Mount
Ojai Festival Singers
Kevin Fox, conductor
Hymnfest: An interactive selection of spirituals and hymns of old and new
11:00am-12:30 pm | Libbey Bowl
The Knights
Eric Jacobsen, conductor
MOZART: Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551, “Jupiter”
Canonade: A “mélange of musical canons and canon-esque miscellaney” with selected works by Josquin, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Kurtág, Purcell, P.D.Q. Bach, Uri Caine, and J.S. Bach
After the contrapuntal pyrotechnics of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, Jeremy Denk unleashes a salvo of musical canons, old and new, silly and serious, by Adès, Schumann, and PDQ Bach – plus an encore by Mozart at his naughtiest. A hard act to follow, unless it’s Uri Caine’s arrangement of J.S. Bach’s intriguing Goldberg canons.
2:00-3:00pm | Ojai Art Center
Timo Andres, piano
TIMO ANDRES: It takes a long time to be a good composer
SCHUMANN: Kreisleriana
5:30-7:30pm | Libbey Bowl
Jeremy Denk, piano
Ojai Festival Singers
The Knights
Kevin Fox, Eric Jacobsen, conductors
LIGETI: Piano Études Books I & II
IVES: Psalm 90
BEETHOVEN: Fantasy in C Minor for Piano, Chorus, and Orchestra, Op.80, “Choral Fantasy”
This Ojai finale is a crescendo of forces from Ligeti’s witty and fiendishly difficult piano études to Ives’ grandiose setting of Psalm 90 for chorus, bells and organ, and culminating with Beethoven’s magnificently quirky fantasy for piano, orchestra, chorus and soloists. Join Jeremy Denk for this extravagant celebration of music pushing at the limits.
Programs and artists are subject to change.