Announcing The 2023 Ojai Festival Schedule

2023 Music Director Rhiannon Giddens and Festival Artistic Director Ara Guzelimian Announce the 77th Ojai Music Festival: June 8 to 11, 2023

 “I am so excited to get to work with the Ojai Music Festival as Music Director for 2023. With Ojai, I am able to sit at the crossroads of all that I am artistically and feel fully supported by the Festival team and by Ojai’s audiences. With the artists that we’re bringing out next June, the future is in celebration of how we come together as humans – despite boxes, boundaries, and borders thrown up with the intent to keep us apart.” – Rhiannon Giddens, 2023 Ojai Festival Music Director

Ojai welcomes new and returning artists to the 2023 Festival: Kayhan Kalhor (kamancheh/composer), Steven Schick (conductor/percussion), Wu Man (pipa), Francesco Turrisi (multi-instrumentalist), Attacca Quartet, Rodney Prada (viola da gamba), Justin Robinson (fiddle), members of Silkroad Ensemble: Mazz Swift (violin/viola), Mario Gotoh (viola), Karen Ouzounian (cello), Shawn Conley (double bass), and red fish blue fish (percussion ensemble)

Highlights of the 2023 Festival programming:

• World Premiere of Omar’s Journey, an Ojai commissioned suite for voices and chamber ensemble drawn from the opera Omar by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels. The new work, placed in the context of the journey of Omar ibn Said (1770-1864), is contextualized by the music of Senegal and the Carolinas
• A reimagining of Tan Dun’s pioneering Ghost Opera for pipa and string quartet
• An acoustic concert with Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi featuring music ranging from Baroque to Appalachian ballads and traditional Black American songs
• Carlos Simon’s Between Worlds, four string works placed directly in the visual context of the work of the self-taught artist Bill Traylor whose lived experience (1853-1949) spanned the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Great Migration
• “Strings Attached” concert – a festive finale of bowed and string instruments from cultures in the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East
• An “Early Music” concert curated by Francesco Turrisi with music spanning from ancient pipa music to works of Dowland and Monteverdi

Featured works by Michael Abels, Philip Glass, Lei Liang, Gabriela Ortiz, Chou Wen-Chung, Edgard Varèse, and by composers of the Iranian Female Composers Association throughout out the Festival

Download 2023 Ojai Music Festival and Rhiannon Giddens Announcement.111022

OJAI, California — November 10, 2022— The 77th Ojai Music Festival, June 8 to 11, 2023, welcomes as Music Director acclaimed musician and composer Rhiannon Giddens. Along with Festival Artistic Director Ara Guzelimian, Giddens shares initial programming highlights for the upcoming Festival which will include more than 18 music events in the beautiful setting of the Ojai Valley.

“Rhiannon Giddens has an extraordinarily wide embrace of music, history, and culture. She uses her art to tell essential stories, to illuminate, and to create deeper understanding, dissolving false boundaries between people and cultures,” adds Guzelimian. “Rhiannon’s programs for the 2023 Ojai Festival touch on so many of her interests across musical genres, from Baroque music to Black traditions in American roots music, from classical music from China and Persia to the influence of non-Western music on American contemporary works. I am thrilled to be working with her and bringing her range of musical interests to Ojai audiences.”

One of the 2023 Festival program anchors will be Omar’s Journey, an Ojai-commissioned suite for voices and small chamber ensemble drawn from the recently premiered opera Omar by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels. For Ojai, this intimate concert version of Omar will be placed in the context of the journey of Omar ibn Said (1770-1864), a Muslim scholar who was captured from his native Senegal and enslaved in North and South Carolina. Omar’s Journey will pair the new Giddens/Abels suite with the musical traditions of Senegal and the Carolinas of his lifetime.

During this 77^th edition of the Ojai Music Festival, additional music centerpieces include a reimagining of Tan Dun’s pioneering Ghost Opera performed by Wu Man and Attacca Quartet that evokes the spirits of Bach and Shakespeare, standing with the ancient folk traditions of traditional shamanistic Chinese music; a complete performance of Carlos Simon’s Between Worlds, a quartet of string works placed directly in the visual context of the art of Bill Traylor (1853-1949), whose lived experience spanned the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the Great Migration, to be performed by members of the Silk Road Ensemble; “Strings Attached” — a musical summit and jam session featuring solos and collaborations among the bowed and plucked string instruments from cultures in the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East; works by members of the Iranian Female Composers Association; and “Early Music” concert, curated by Francesco Turrisi, with a program to ancient pipa music to works of Dowland and Monteverdi.

In honor of what would have been his 100^th birthday, the Festival will also feature works of Chinese-American composer Chou Wen-Chung coupled with music of Edgard Varèse who was Chou Wen-Chung’s mentor, friend, and collaborator. The Festival will also present music by Michael Abels, Philip Glass, Gabriela Ortiz, and Lei Liang throughout the weekend.

Rhiannon Giddens’ 2023 collaborators will include a mix of Festival debuts and returning artists. Audiences will be introduced to Kayhan Kalhor (kamancheh/composer), Rodney Prada (viola da gamba), Justin Robinson (fiddle), along with members of the Silkroad Ensemble including Mazz Swift (violin/viola), Mario Gotoh (viola), Karen Ouzounian (cello), and Shawn Conley (double bass).

Making welcome returns to Ojai will be conductor/percussionist Steven Schick, who was Music Director for the 2015 Festival and pipa player Wu Man who last appeared with Schick. From the 2021 Festival will be multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, and the Attacca Quartet (violinists Amy Schroeder and Domenic Salerni, violist Nathan Schram, and cellist Andrew Yee).

Additional programming will be announced in spring 2023.

Community Offerings
An integral part of the immersive Ojai Festival experience are the free community activities that occur in the Libbey Park and throughout Ojai. This will include Morning Meditations, Music Pop-Ups, and a Family Concert.

Beyond Ojai: Online Offerings
The Ojai Music Festival lives beyond the flagship four-day festival in June, allowing further engagement with audiences worldwide. These include the Festival’s state-of-the-art live streaming and archived library of concerts; Virtual Ojai Talks with featured Festival artists and alum leading up to the Festival; and OjaiCast, the podcast series that provides insights on upcoming programming. The Festival’s digital projects are available at OjaiFestival.org.

New this year is Ojai on the Air with WQXR/New Sounds with host John Schaefer.  The series of programs connects audiences and artists who engage deeply with adventurous new music. The first program, which debuted in October and is archived and available on WQXR, featured discipline colliding collective AMOC, Ojai’s 2022 Music Director. Ojai on the Air will announce additional ongoing programs leading up to and during the 2023 Festival with Music Director Rhiannon Giddens.

Series Passes for 2023 Ojai Music Festival
2023 series passes are available and may be purchased online at OjaiFestival.org or by calling (805) 646-2053.  Festival series passes range from $205 to $965 for reserved seating.  Lawn seating series passes start at $80. Single tickets will go on sale in the spring.

See Full 2023 Schedule 

RHIANNON GIDDENS, MUSIC DIRECTOR OF THE 2023 OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL
The acclaimed musician Rhiannon Giddens uses her art to excavate the past and reveal bold truths about our present. A MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient, Giddens co-founded the Grammy Award- winning Carolina Chocolate Drops. She most recently won a Grammy Award for Best Folk Album for They’re Calling Me Home and was also nominated for Best American Roots Song for “Avalon” from They’re Calling Me Home, which she made with multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi. Giddens is now a two-time winner and eight-time Grammy nominee for her work as a soloist and collaborator.

They’re Calling Me Home was released by Nonesuch last April and has been widely celebrated by the NY Times, NPR Music, NPR, Rolling Stone, People, Associated Press and far beyond, with No Depression deeming it “a near perfect album…her finest work to date.” Recorded over six days in the early phase of the pandemic in a small studio outside of Dublin, Ireland – where both Giddens and Turrisi live – They’re Calling Me Home manages to effortlessly blend the music of their native and adoptive countries: America, Italy, and Ireland. The album speaks of the longing for the comfort of home as well as the metaphorical “call home” of death.

Giddens’s lifelong mission is to lift people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been erased, and to work toward a more accurate understanding of the country’s musical origins. Pitchfork has said of her work, “few artists are so fearless and so ravenous in their exploration,” and Smithsonian Magazine calls her “an electrifying artist who brings alive the memories of forgotten predecessors, white and black.”

Among her many diverse career highlights, Giddens has performed for the Obamas at the White House and received an inaugural Legacy of Americana Award from Nashville’s National Museum of African American History in partnership with the Americana Music Association. Her critical acclaim includes in-depth profiles by CBS Sunday Morning, the New York Times, the New Yorker, and NPR’s Fresh Air, among many others.

Giddens was featured in Ken Burns’s Country Music series, which aired on PBS, where she spoke about the African-American origins of country music. She is also a member of the band Our Native Daughters with three other black female banjo players, Leyla McCalla, Allison Russell, and Amythyst Kiah, and co- produced their debut album Songs of Our Native Daughters (2019), which tells stories of historic black womanhood and survival.

Giddens is in the midst of a tremendous 2022. She recently announced the publication of her first book, Build a House (October 2022). Lucy Negro Redux, the ballet Giddens wrote the music for, had its premiere at the Nashville Ballet (premiered in 2019 and toured in 2022), and the libretto and music for Giddens’ original opera, Omar, in collaboration with Michael Abels, based on the autobiography of the enslaved man Omar Ibn Said, premiered at the Spoleto USA Festival in May. Giddens is also curating a four-concert Perspectives series as part of Carnegie Hall’s 2022–2023 season. Named Artistic Director of Silkroad Ensemble in 2020, Giddens is developing new programs for that ensemble, including one inspired by the history of the American transcontinental railroad and the cultures and music of its builders.  As an actor, Giddens had a featured role on the television series Nashville.

Rhiannon Giddens last appeared at the Ojai Music Festival in September 2021 with Music Director John Adams.

 ARA GUZELIMIAN, ARTISTIC AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Ara Guzelimian is Artistic and Executive Director of the Ojai Music Festival, having begun in that position in July 2020. The appointment culminates many years of association with the Festival including tenures as director of the Ojai Talks and as Artistic Director from 1992–97. Guzelimian stepped down as Provost and Dean of the Juilliard School in New York City in June 2020, having served in that position since 2007. At Juilliard, he worked closely with the president in overseeing the faculty, curriculum, and artistic planning of the distinguished performing arts conservatory in all three of its divisions: dance, drama, and music. He continues at Juilliard as Special Advisor, office of the president.

Prior to the Juilliard appointment, he was Senior Director and Artistic Advisor of Carnegie Hall from 1998 to 2006. Guzelimian serves as artistic consultant for the Marlboro Music Festival and School in Vermont. He is a member of the steering committee of the Aga Khan Music Awards, the artistic committee of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust in London, and a board member of the Amphion and Pacific Harmony Foundations. He is also a member of the music visiting committee of the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City. In 2020, Guzelimian was appointed to the advisory panel of the Birgit Nilsson Foundation in Sweden.

Previously, Guzelimian held the position of Artistic Administrator of the Aspen Music Festival and School in Colorado, and he was long associated with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the beginning of his career, first as producer for the orchestra’s national radio broadcasts and, subsequently, as Artistic Administrator. Guzelimian is editor of Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society (Pantheon Books, 2002), a collection of dialogues between Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said. In September 2003, he was awarded the title Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government for his contributions to French music and culture.

OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL
The Ojai Music Festival represents an ideal of adventurous, openminded, and openhearted programming in the most beautiful and welcoming of settings, with audiences and artists to match its aspirations. Marking its 75th anniversary season last 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 Festival-related programming as well as robust educational offerings that serve thousands of public-school students and seniors. The organization’s apex is the world-renowned four-day Festival, which takes place in Ojai, a breathtaking valley 75 miles from Los Angeles, which is a perennial platform for the fresh and unexpected. During the immersive experience, a mingling of the most curious take part in concerts, symposia, free community events, and social gatherings. During the intimate Festival weekend, considered a highlight of the international music summer season, Ojai welcomes up to 5,000 patrons and reaches 35 times more audiences worldwide through live and on- demand streaming of concerts and discussions throughout the year.

Since its founding in 1947, the Ojai Music Festival has presented broad-ranging programs 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 the multi-disciplinary colliding collective 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.