Grammy-nominated composer-pianist Vijay Iyer (pronounced “VID-jay EYE-yer”) was described by Pitchfork as “one of the most interesting and vital young pianists in jazz today,” by the Los Angeles Weekly as “a boundless and deeply important young star,” and by Minnesota Public Radio as “an American treasure.” He has been voted DownBeat Magazine‘s Artist of the Year three times – in 2016, 2015 and 2012. Iyer was named Downbeat’s 2014 Pianist of the Year, a 2013 MacArthur Fellow, and a 2012 Doris Duke Performing Artist. In 2014 he began a permanent appointment as the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts in the Department of Music at Harvard University.
The New York Times observes, “There’s probably no frame wide enough to encompass the creative output of the pianist Vijay Iyer.” Iyer has released twenty albums covering remarkably diverse terrain, most recently for the ECM label. The latest include A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke (2016), a collaboration with Iyer’s “hero, friend and teacher,” Wadada Leo Smith, which the Los Angeles Times calls “haunting, meditative and transportive”; Break Stuff (2015), with a coveted five-star rating in DownBeat Magazine, featuring the Vijay Iyer Trio, hailed by PopMatters as “the best band in jazz”; Mutations (2014), featuring Iyer’s music for piano, string quartet and electronics, which “extends and deepens his range… showing a delicate, shimmering, translucent side of his playing” (Chicago Tribune); and Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi (2014), “his most challenging and impressive work, the scintillating score to a compelling film by Prashant Bhargava” (DownBeat), performed by International Contemporary Ensemble and released on DVD and BluRay.
Known for using fresh and local ingredients, Ojai’s many restaurants offer visitors a unique taste of the central coast. No trip to Ojai is complete without a delicious meal – use our quick restaurant guide to help you plan your culinary adventure!
Agave Maria’sRestaurant and Cantina
10:30 am – 9:00 pm
106 S. Montgomery St. | 805 646 6353
Mexican food with a fresh twist, featuring several organic and healthy options. Restaurant has a large outdoor patio and a wide selection of drinks. Located downtown. Reservations are recommended.
Bonnie Lu’s Country Cafe
7:00 am – 2:30 pm, closed Wednesday
328 E. Ojai Ave | 805 646 0207
Homestyle breakfast and lunch diner. Features a wide range of traditional American entrees – a local favorite for breakfast. Make sure to arrive early to get a table.
Ca’ Marco Italian Restaurant 11:00 am – 3:00 pm & 5:00 pm – 9:00 pm
1002 E. Ojai Avenue | 805 640 1048
Delicious and inventive Italian favorites.
Reservations recommended.
Deer Lodge
Mon – Thurs: 11:30 am – 10:00 pm (2:00 am Fridays)
Sat & Sun: 10:30 am – 10:00 pm (BBQ 12:00 pm – 4:30 pm)
2261 Maricopa Way | 805 646 4256
Legendary Ojai restaurant featuring farm to table dining in a welcoming lodge environment. Reservations recommended.
Farmer and the Cook
11:00 am – 8:00 pm
339 W. El Roblar Ave. | 805 640 9608
Natural grocery with a restaurant featuring locally sourced and organic meals. Their weekly menu always includes tasty vegan and gluten-free options. Check their website for the menu of the week.
Feast Bistro
Tues – Sat: 11:30 am – close (lunch) | 5:30 pm – close (dinner)
Closed Sundays, except for special events
254 E. Ojai Ave. | 805 640 9260
New American bistro-style restaurant with seasonal daily specials and fresh desserts featuring locally grown ingredients. Special seasonal menu items and deals featured on their website. Reservations strongly recommended.
Los Caporales Restaurant
307 E. Ojai Ave. | 805 646 5452
Located right next to Libbey Park, Los Corporales features traditional Mexican food in a comfortable and cozy setting. The bar has several unique specialty drinks. Reservations recommended.
NoSo Vita
205 N. Signal St. | 805 646 1540
7:00am – 5:00pm (Espresso Bar)
7:00am – 3:00pm (Breakfast & Lunch, no kitchen on Tuesdays)
See website for detailed hours
Coffeehouse and bistro featuring fresh-brewed coffee, espresso, cold craft coffee on tap, and a fresh, vibrant locally-sourced menu.
Ojai Beverage Company
Mon: 12:00 pm – 9:00 pm , Tues & Wed: 11:00 am – 10:00 pm, Thurs – Sat: 11:00 am – 11:00 pm, Sun: 11:30 am – 9:00 pm
655 E. Ojai Ave | 805 646 1700
The Ojai Beverage Company serves upscale bar food at its restaurant and is a premier destination for fine wine, craft beer and unique spirits. Has an extensive tasting menu and shop. Take away is available. Reservations are recommended for dining in.
Ojai Cafe Emporium
7:00am – 3:00pm
Dinner: Wed-Thurs, 3:00 – 8:00pm
Longtime favorite Ojai Cafe Emporium serves up soups, sandwiches, quiches – and now dinner – alongside their famous baked goods.
Ojai Coffee Roasting Co.
5:30 am – 6:00 pm
337 E. Ojai Ave. | 805 646 4478
A local institution and favorite, the Roasting Co. serves coffee, tea, and pastries, as well as a variety of sandwiches and salads. Food can be called in ahead to be picked up.
Osteria Monte Grappa
Sun – Thurs: 11:30 am – 8:30 pm, Friday – Sat: 11:30 am – 9:30 pm
Closed Sunday dinner
242 E. Ojai Ave. | 805 640 6767
Authentic Italian cuisine offered at the heart of downtown Ojai. A wide range of pastas, entrees, and pizzas made fresh from local ingredients. Reservations are strongly recommended.
Rainbow Bridge
8:00 am – 9:00 pm
211 E. Matilija St. | 805 646 6623
Rainbow Bridge’s hot deli offers a wide variety of dishes as part of their rotating menu, as well as sandwiches, soups, and smoothies. The grocery has all the ingredients to perfect your picnic.
Suzanne’s Cuisine
Wed – Mon: 11:30 am – 2:30 pm (lunch), 5:30 pm – close (dinner)
502 W. Ojai Ave. | 805 640 1961
Suzanne’s is a favorite destination for locals and visitors alike. New American cuisine is served in a relaxing atmosphere featuring a beautiful outdoor patio. Reservations are strongly recommended.
The Ojai Vineyard
12:00 pm – 5:00 pm (Sun – Thurs), 12:00 pm – 8:00 pm (Fri – Sat)
109 S. Montgomery St. | 805 798 3947
Owned by Adam and Helen Tolmach, the Ojai Vineyard produces artisan wines using local Ojai and Central Coast grapes. Located a block from Libbey Bowl, their cozy tasting room is a great place to unwind between concerts.
The Ranch House
5:00 pm – 10:00pm
102 Besant Rd. | 805 646 2360
Famed for its original award-winning cuisine, the Ranch House’s menu and beautiful garden setting have long made it a destination of choice for Ojai visitors. Reservations are strongly recommended.
The Ojai Valley is home to many wonderful resorts, bed & breakfasts and motels that are happy to welcome you during your Ojai Music Festival experience. We strongly recommend securing lodging for the Festival as early as possible. For assistance, contact the box office or contact our complimentary Festival concierge, Sheila Cohn: 805 869 1154 | [email protected].
For a change in landscape, consider staying in the coastal city of Ventura, approx. 17 miles from Ojai where they have a variety of accommodations to suit your needs and budget. Visit the Ventura Visitor and Convention Bureau >>
Maddy’s Thursday Afternoon/Evening Patron Services and Development Associate, Intern Alum 2021
“My ideal Thursday at the Festival would start with attending the Ojai Talks, then heading downtown to find a good parking spot between Fox and Signal Streets. I’d wander around the Ojai Community Farmer’s Market, probably buying some fresh-cut flowers and Bonito Coffee beans for the week.
I’d then meet friends for dinner at Izakaya Full Moon, an intimate spot serving Japanese favorites and an ever-rotating list of specials. The Corn Kagi-age, Agedashi Tofu, and the Chef’s Choice Nigiri are my favorite menu items. Dinner would be followed by a walk to Libbey Park, setting up a spot on the Lawn with cozy blankets and a glass of wine, and enjoying the first concert of the Ojai Music Festival.”
“For me, the best way to experience the Ojai Music Festival is by embracing the town’s natural beauty, eclectic shops, and local flavors—preferably by bike.
My day begins by browsing my favorite vintage and thrift shops on foot. Stops include Gratitude Vintage and Help of Ojai, where I dig for treasures, especially vinyl records. Just in time for the 3:30 PM Beyond the Bowl concert, I pedal over to Ojai Valley School, taking in the fresh air and rolling hills along the way.
For dinner, my go-to is Zadiee’s at Soule Park Golf Course, located at the eastern end of the bike path. If the weather’s warm, I always request a patio seat for the stunning views. My usual order? An iced tea and either the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich or the Baja Tacos. As the sun sets, I meander back along the bike path toward Libbey Park, where I unwind in the Green Room in the Park, hoping to catch a surprise musical pop-up before the 8PM Libbey Bowl concert.
It’s a perfect Ojai day—one filled with music, nature, and the town’s unique charm.”
Fiona’s Sunday Afternoon Producer
“I’d start by shopping at the upstairs portion of Bungalow, a local shop featuring handmade goods and gifts. The upstairs room has amazingly high-quality clothing items. Across the street from Bungalow is Move Sanctuary, where Annea Lockwood’s Housatonic sound installation is playing.
From there, I’d head up to Shelf Road for an easy hike with a great view of Ojai that isn’t too far out of town. Then it’s back into town to end the afternoon with a 30-minute chair massage at the Relaxing Station before the final concert of the Festival.”
ONE NIGHT ONLY: WED May 14 7PM-10:30PM Light and Space Yoga in Ojai
The Ojai Music Festival partners with The Listening Garden for an evening of immersive sonic exploration led by 2025 Music Director and flutist Claire Chase. The event invites attendees to participate in the legacy of experimental and electronic music pioneer, Pauline Oliveros.
The Ojai Music Festival partners with The Listening Garden for an evening of immersive sonic exploration led by 2025 Music Director and flutist Claire Chase. The event invites attendees to participate in the legacy of experimental and electronic music pioneer, Pauline Oliveros.
The Ojai Music Festival partners with The Listening Garden for an evening of immersive sonic exploration led by 2025 Music Director and flutist Claire Chase. The event invites attendees to participate in the legacy of experimental and electronic music pioneer, Pauline Oliveros.
The evening will include bento-style Japanese dinner available for purchase, as well as complimentary tea ceremony & wine.
Early Bird tickets are $37/person. Limited seating available. Hurry now to save your spot.
Described by The New York Times as “the most important flutist of our time,” Claire Chase is a musician, interdisciplinary artist, and educator. One of today’s most generative forces of new music, Chase returns to Ojai later this season as Musical Director of the 2025 Ojai Music Festival.
Chase has recently performed as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony, Munich Chamber Orchestra, and London Philharmonia. She is currently collaborating with The Getty Center on a public offering inspired by the listening philosophies of Pauline Oliveros (PST ART x Science Collide festival, 2024-25).
Colloboh is a Nigerian-born, LA-based sound artist, producer, composer, and DJ. While known for his modular synth works, he’s broken new ground in experimental performance with recent collaborations with Los Angeles Philharmonic and The Getty Center.
Mark “Frosty” McNeil is a DJ, radio host, sonic curator, and founder of dublab radio, a pioneering web-based radio station exploring wide-spectrum music since 1999. McNeill currently serves as a Creative Producer for Los Angeles Philharmonic.
About Pauline Oliveros + Deep Listening
Pauline Oliveros was a sonic visionary; her work in composition, improvisation, and teaching was imaginative, ground-breaking and largely dedicated to accessibility.
Deep Listening describes philosophies and practices that explore the space between the physical phenomenon of hearing and the conscious practice of listening. It includes listening and sounding exercises, sonic meditations, and interactive performance. In the words of Oliveros, “Deep Listening involves going below the surface of what is heard, expanding to the whole field of sound while finding focus. This is the way to connect with the acoustic environment, all that inhabits it, and all that there is.”
Everything you need to know to immerse yourself in and prepare for the 2025 Ojai Music Festival!
CONTENTS
I)The Basics Your introduction to the Festival II) Composer Context Who’s who and who will be in town at the 2025 Festival III) Podcast Listen now to delve even deeper IV) Book Recs Read your way to understanding more about 2025 V)Suggested Films Things to add to your watchlist before the Festival VI)Between the Downbeats What to do and where to go between concerts VII) Quick Links A few final tips to point you in the right direction
The Basics
Since 1947, the Ojai Music Festival has offered four days of innovative programming each spring, blending contemporary, classical, and experimental approaches to music-making. A new music director curates the Festival annually, bringing fresh perspectives and fostering collaboration among world-class artists. Core concerts take place at the historic Libbey Bowl, with additional free and off-site events—including intimate theatrical concerts, thoughtful symposiums, and family-friendly pop-ups—throughout Ojai.
For the 2025 Festival, June 5-8, the music director is Claire Chase: expert flutist, interdisciplinary artist, and community-focused educator. Among many other accolades, Chase is known for launching the 24-year commissioning projectDensity 2036. Now in its 12th year, Density reimagines the solo flute literature through commissions, performances, recordings, and educational initiatives. Works that are part of Density 2036 punctuate the Festival’s programming in Thursday night’s opening concert with Marcos Balter’s Pan and on Friday afternoon with Liza Lim’s Sex Magic.
Under Claire Chase, this Festival’s programming centers on responses to landscape as caretakers and participants, and celebrates collaboration and dialogue across multiple generations of composers and performers. The 2025 Festival includes four World Premieres of works by Susie Ibarra, Tania León, Terry Riley, and Bahar Royaee; the US Premiere of Liza Lim’s Cardamom; eight West Coast Premieres; and seminal works by John Coltrane, Julius Eastman, Sofia Gubaidulina, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, and more.
Central threads of this year include:
Connection to and conservation of ecology and nature
Using music as a means to symbolize an idea or meaning
Meditative and mindful contemplation
Deep listening
What to listen for:
Unique instrumentation, such as Claire Chase’s towering contrabass flute, or the use of bamboo as a percussive element in Susie Ibarra’s Sky Islands
Extended techniques of traditional instruments, such as percussive flute playing or playing a cymbal with a double bass bow
Music that is part of or descended from minimalism, a 20th-century compositional movement that emphasizes repetition, drones, and/or gradual shifting between notes or techniques
Microtonal music (not necessarily atonal), which is music that utilizes pitches in between the 12 in the equal-tempered European chromatic scale
Here is a bit of context about each composer. Something special about this year’s Festival is that many of the featured composers will be in attendance, so be on the lookout for them at Ojai Chats, in the audience, or around town.
Marcos Balter
Works performed at Festival events: THU 8PM, SAT 10:30 AM
Marcos Balter’s Pan is a central work of Claire Chase’s epic Density 2036 project. The Brazilian-American composer’s work for solo flute, live electronics, and community participation evokes the life and death of the Greek god Pan (himself a player of flutes) in a collaborative work that has elements of theatrical ritual. Here is an evocative description of the work by the writer Lisa Hirsch.
In attendance at 2025 Festival Works performed at Festival events: SAT 8AM, SUN 10:30AM
Susie has had a wide-ranging career as both percussionist and composer in a wide vocabulary of genres, with her collaborators ranging from Wadada Leo Smith and John Zorn to Pauline Oliveros.
Here is a sampling of Susie in action in her extended album titled Talking Gong. First, Sunbird, written for Claire Chase and to be heard in a different version this year in Ojai on the Sunday early morning concert. And then, Paniwala from the same work, with Susie Ibarra joined by pianist Alex Peh, who is also a key collaborator in Sky Islands.
In attendance at 2025 Festival Works performed at Festival events: FRI 8PM, SAT 10:30AM, SUN 8AM, SUN 5:30PM
A Kanaka Maoli composer, violist, interdisciplinary artist, and music writer based in Hawaii, Leilehua Lanzilotti creates open spaces for deep listening and connection — with the natural environment, language, and community. Her music often emerges from a broader practice of storytelling and stewardship, centering Indigenous values to repair erasure and reimagine the concert experience. Lanzilotti’s piece koʻu inoa will begin the Friday Evening concert in Libbey Bowl.
In the Hawaiian language, koʻu inoa translates as “my name” or “is my name,” according to the composer — a simple phrase that carries the weight of identity, ancestry, and presence. Lanzilotti’s own first name, Leilehua, signifies “a garland of lehua blossoms” — “the first plant to grow back after the volcano destroys all vegetation,” she explains. “Looking beyond the direct translation, it means ‘creating beauty out of destruction.’”
Lanzilotti calls this piece, which is of flexible duration, “a homesick bariolage” — referring to the rapid alternation between strings to produce a shimmering effect – based on Hawaiʻi Aloha. With lyrics written in the 19th century by Makua Laiana, the anthem is “usually sung at the end of large concerts or gatherings, with everyone joining hands and swaying side to side as they sing,” but here, as Lanzilotti notes, it serves to invite introductions. “Hawaiʻi Aloha evokes not only a homesickness for place and sound, but this action of coming together — a homesickness that we’re all feeling right now, where music and human interaction are home.”
In attendance at 2025 Festival Works performed at Festival events: FRI 8AM,SAT 8PM, SUN 10:30AM, SUN 5:30PM
Friday, June 6 begins with an early morning program featuring the JACK Quartet performing, among other treasures, Abanico, a work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Tania León. This concert is one of our OJAI DAWNS, an annual intimate concert in our farthest venue from downtown: Zalk Theater (on the stunning campus of Beasant Hill School).
The sound of a solo instrument is expanded and multiplied in this piece for violin and interactive electronics. Abanico takes its name from the Spanish word for “fan” — a reference both to the decorative folding fans found throughout Spanish and Cuban culture and to the swirling motion at the heart of the piece. That sense of motion and elegance informs the music, which León describes as “a bouncing scherzo of images, using sound as a mirror of physical motion. It is built of emerging lines that sometimes mutate into rhythmical pulses. Juxtapositions of bouncing textures become echo effects; memories, associations, and images of abanico dancing in mid-air.” With a nod to her Cuban roots, León incorporates a brief quotation from a 1920s song by Eusebio Delfín.
Works performed at Festival events: FRI 8AM, FRI 2:30PM, SAT 8PM
In its West Coast premiere, Australian composer Liza Lim’s Density 2036 contribution Sex Magic for solo contrabass flute and electronics centers Friday afternoon. Inspired by Claire Chase’s towering contrabass flute (Bertha), Sex Magic evokes and celebrates women’s power across time and cultures, evoking the giant bass flutes of Papua New Guinea and the Australian didgeridoo in a work that ritually moves across three altars, creating a mystical, mesmerizing evocation of both the present and the timeless past. Find more about this piece on Lim’s website.
Saturday evening’s concert concludes with Liza Lim’s large-scale How Forests Think, a work inspired by the imagery of ancient forests as vibrant, symbiotic communities that, as Lim writes, “nourish the old connections and keep a song going. One might think of a forest as a choir or certainly as an ensemble. Stories, dreams, and thoughts inhabit multiple forms in a living matrix.” Find more about this piece on Liza Lim’s website.
In attendance at 2025 Festival Works performed at Festival events:THU 8PM, SAT & SUN 2-5PM, SAT 10:30PM
Annea Lockwood is a composer known for integrating the interplay of sound in nature into her musical creations. The 2025 Festival opens on Thursday, June 5, with Annea Lockwood’s Bayou-Borne, an affectionate tribute to a collaborator and dear friend, Pauline Oliveros. Her piece Spirit Catchers will be played in a special late-night setting at the Ojai Playhouse after the Saturday Evening concert, How Forests Think. Try to arrive with time to grab a snack or drink from the newly remodeled historical cinema!
Lockwood’s sound map of the Housatonic River, captured as a four-channel sound installation, will be installed and played from 2-5PM on both Saturday and Sunday during the Festival in the serene pilates/yoga space of Move Sanctuary. Here are Lockwood’s notes explaining the creation of the piece:
“A Sound Map of the Housatonic River is a four-channel sound installation; it is an aural tracing of the river from its sources in the Berkshires, Massachusetts, to Long Island Sound, Connecticut. Each recorded site is located on a wall map with a number. Beside the map is the corresponding number, followed by the time at which that site can be heard, the place name, and where the recording was made. The installation was commissioned by the Housatonic River Museum, a project in development in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.”
In attendance at 2025 Festival Works performed at Festival events: FRI 10:30AM, SAT & SUN 3:30 & 2:30PM
The Libbey Bowl concert on Friday celebrates the old made new in Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Impressions for harpsichord and ends with a summit meeting between Craig Taborn and Cory Smythe, two dazzlingly inventive composers and pianists whose worlds encompass creative music, free jazz, new music, and beyond.
The afternoon of Saturday, June 7, is punctuated by the West Coast premiere of Craig Taborn’s Busy Griefs and Endangered Charms for flute, clarinet, cello, piano, and electronics. Taborn’s critically acclaimed Busy Griefs and Endangered Charms was inspired by a dream in which plants awake, blossom, grow, and change as the dreamer walks through a garden. (A second performance of Taborn’s Busy Griefs and Endangered Charms will be offered on Sunday afternoon, June 8.)
For the past three years, the Ojai Music Festival has produced a podcast, OJAICAST, which aims to prepare listeners for the Festival by contextualizing the composers, performers, and intentions behind them all. In the spring of 2025, the Ojai Community Radio station, KOJY, was founded. Their mission is to provide Ojai and the surrounding communities with a freeform platform for music, community voices, education, and emergency broadcasting, without ads or commercial influence.
For this fourth installment of our podcast, each episode will first air as a radio show on KOJY and then be available for streaming. This installment is also special in that the artists and composers of the 2025 Festival will be featured on the show in conversation with host Chris Noxon, local painter and writer. It will be produced by produced by Will Thomas, local composer and producer. Listen to it live on KOJY on each Friday starting May 9, or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts anytime after.
In this astonishing book, Eduardo Kohn challenges the very foundations of anthropology, calling into question our central assumptions about what it means to be human–and thus distinct from all other life forms. Based on four years of fieldwork among the Runa of Ecuador’s Upper Amazon, Eduardo Kohn draws on his rich ethnography to explore how Amazonians interact with the many creatures that inhabit one of the world’s most complex ecosystems.
Liza Lim’s large-scale work of the same title is the finale of Saturday night’s Libbey Bowl concert. She was inspired to create this piece after reading this book.
A New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century Readers Pick #1 New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post and Los Angeles Times Bestseller As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert). In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.
In Virtual Ojai Talks, Claire Chase mentioned reading this book and feeling inspired by it in her curation of this year’s concerts.
An immersive documentary and profound sensory experience from filmmaker Sam Green that explores the elemental phenomenon of sound. The film is a meditation on the power of sound to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world around us.
Deep Listening: The Story of Pauline Oliveros” tells the story of the iconic composer, performer, teacher, philosopher, technological innovator and humanitarian, Pauline Oliveros. She was one of the world’s original electronic musicians, one of the only females amongst notable post-war American composers, a master accordion player, a teacher and mentor to musicians, a gateway to music and sound for non-musicians and a technical innovator who helped develop everything from tools that allow musicians to play together while in different countries to software that enables those with severe disabilities to create beautiful music. On the vanguard of contemporary American music for six decades, her story illuminates the pathway to how we got where we are and where the future will take us in the worlds of music, the philosophy of sound, and the art of listening.
Wondering where to go, shop, and eat in between concerts? Use the links below to read what our staff recommends, a full list of our local favorites, and even more recommendations in the mobile app.
Get an inside look at the creative process with our free Virtual Ojai Talks, where we celebrate the intersection of music and ideas with the 2025 Festival artists, composers, innovators, and thinkers. Virtual Talks are free and open to the musically curious!
Marcos Balter and Susie Ibarra WED April 16 | 5:30PM | Zoom
Join Artistic and Executive Director Ara Guzelimian with special guests Marcos Balter and Susie Ibarra, two of today’s innovative composers who continue to stretch musical limits in their approach to music, and fortunate for Ojai, this year’s composers-in-residence. Gain insight into their unique creative processes and discover what to expect at the Festival in June, led by their colleague and friend Claire Chase as music director.
Renowned composer Annea Lockwood will join us for a special Ojai Talks session alongside Music Director Claire Chase. Together, with Ara Guzelimian, they will delve into their shared passion for the interplay of sound in nature and its integration into their musical creations of which will be featured at this year’s Ojai Festival.
Q&A with Tom Morris and special talk with Barbara Hannigan December 4, 2024
Always The Music is the fascinating story of former Ojai Music Festival Artistic Director Tom Morris’ personal metamorphosis through the highest levels of the world of classical music, his learning and insights into how storied musical institutions function, great artists create, and audiences engage. Join us for a participatory Q&A between Tom and Ara Guzelimian, plus a special conversation between Tom and 2019 Music Director Barbara Hannigan, recorded for this online session.
Meet the Music Director September 18
To kick off preparations for the 2025 Ojai Music Festival, June 5-8, join us for a conversation between Music Director Claire Chase and Artistic and Executive Director Ara Guzelimian.
Music Director Claire Chase and Artistic Director Ara Guzelimian Announce Updates for the 79th Festival, June 5 to 8, 2025
The Ojai Music Festival celebrates collaboration and dialogue across multiple generations of composers and performers, including four World Premieres of works by Susie Ibarra, Tania León, Terry Riley, and Bahar Royaee; two U.S. Premieres by Tania León and Liza Lim; eight West Coast Premieres; residencies by Tania León, Annea Lockwood, Liza Lim, Craig Taborn, Susie Ibarra, Leilehua Lanzilotti, and Marcos Balter; and seminal works by John Coltrane, Julius Eastman, Sofia Gubaidulina, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, and more
“There’s no place in the world like Ojai, and there is no gathering of musicians and ideas like the Ojai Festival. From the time I was a kid growing up in Southern California, the Festival has taken on mythical dimensions for me.” – Claire Chase, 2025 Music Director
(March 19, 2025, OJAI, CA) — The 79th Ojai Music Festival, running June 5 to 8, 2025, welcomes as Music Director one of today’s most vital artists, flutist Claire Chase. Chase, together with the Festival’s Artistic and Executive Director, Ara Guzelimian, today announces the complete programming for the June Festival, welcoming a multi-generational international community of composers, performers, composer-performers, and improvisers.
Claire Chase is known internationally as a flutist, new music advocate, and educator. After establishing her professional career as co-founder and artistic director of the multi-award-winning International Contemporary Ensemble, Chase quickly developed a reputation as an artist with a penchant for collaboration and community-building. Her esteem within the new music community continued to grow with the 2013 launch of her signature Density 2036 project. This 24-year initiative—in which she commissions a program of new pieces for flute each year, concluding in 2036—has enriched the contemporary flute repertoire with dozens of new compositions, while the Density Fellows program, founded in 2023, mentors a new generation of flutists while ensuring the pieces remain in the repertoire. In recognition of her efforts, she has earned the Avery Fisher Prize, a MacArthur Fellowship, and, in the 2022–23 season, served as the Richard and Barbara Debs Creative Chair at Carnegie Hall.
“Claire Chase is one of the most vibrant generators of ideas in today’s musical life,” says Guzelimian, “something she does with boundless imagination and generosity of spirit. It’s been so rewarding to imagine all of Ojai’s possibilities with her. I’m particularly excited by the musical community she’s creating with the resident performers and composers, weaving them throughout in collaborations and cross-current inspirations. And being a native of California, Claire responds deeply to the particular beauty and complexity of Ojai’s natural setting, something represented in many works that explore many distinct environments.”
Under Chase’s musical leadership, the 2025 Ojai Music Festival celebrates collaboration and dialogue across multiple generations of composers. Among them are Composers-in-Residence Tania León, Annea Lockwood, Liza Lim, and Marcos Balter; composer-performers Craig Taborn (piano), Leilehua Lanzilotti (viola), and Susie Ibarra (percussion); luminaries including Sofia Gubaidulina, Terry Riley, and Anna Thorvaldsdottir; and emerging composers including Eduardo Aguilar, Vincent Atria, and Bahar Royaee. Together, these artists will present new and recent works—including four world premieres, one U.S. premiere, and eight West Coast premieres—in dialogue with one another, as well as with era-defining artists such as J.S. Bach, John Coltrane, Julius Eastman, and Pauline Oliveros. In the spirit of Chase’s tireless advocacy for new music, each composer appears on equal footing with one another, each piece as vital to the narrative of its program as its counterparts. Household names share the stage with rising talents, and notated works coexist with improvised ones, illuminating unexpected commonalities and delighting in divergences.
“While shaping these programs,” writes Chase, “I was inspired by the author Donna Haraway’s invitation to encounter one another in ‘unexpected combinations and collaborations,’ in what she calls ‘oddkin’—a term for our deep and unruly interdependence. What a beautiful description of the messy and miraculous experience of making music in the 21st century! The four days of the Festival will be anchored by four generations of brilliant composers whose projects—though wonderfully divergent stylistically—explore common themes of rebirth, re-imagination, reclamation, and rewilding. Our programs will be brought to life by an exhilarating lineup of performers whose manifold musical backgrounds will meet in unpredictable and electrifying new ways. From Thursday to Sunday, we will conjure thinking forests, liberated rivers, endangered charms, ancient mythologies, holy presences, magical spells, and reimagined communities. And we will embrace multispecies collaboration in performance experiences that extend from the newly rewilded landscapes of the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy to the feathered night choruses fluttering around Libbey Bowl. My hope is that these programs will illuminate and celebrate the fragilities as well as the exuberant possibilities of music made in oddkin. I look forward to welcoming you to the adventure!”
The spirit of collaboration and found community suffuses not only the music and its presentation, but the performers themselves. Ojai’s 2025 Festival collaborators represent artists from the Latin American, European, Australian, and American contemporary music scenes. Among them are returning artists Steven Schick, who previously served as 2015 Music Director; cellist Seth Parker Woods; the JACK Quartet comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell; cellist Katinka Kleijn; Levy Lorenzo, percussion and electronics; M.A. Tiesenga, saxophone and electronic hurdy-gurdy; percussionist Ross Karre; clarinetist Joshua Rubin; bassist (and ELISON Ensemble member) Kathryn Schulmeister; and pianist Cory Smythe. Several artists appear in their Festival debut, including Wu Wei, sheng; Michael Matsuno, flute; Ben Marks, trombone, and Tristram Williams, trumpet, of ELISION Ensemble; Alex Peh, keyboards; Leilehua Lanzilotti, composer and viola; Susie Ibarra, composer and percussion; Craig Taborn, composer and piano; Wesley Sumpter, percussion; and the USC Cello Ensemble.
Rather than limiting each artist to set ensembles, this year’s Festival collaborators comprise a single, flexible ensemble whose various configurations can flow and evolve to best suit the unique requirements of each program. “In the spirit of collectivism and collaboration, I’m excited to invite these artists to play together in new and sometimes surprising ensemble configurations,” says Chase. “We’ll all show up as both headliners and side acts in each other’s explorations.”
The 2025 Festival opens on Thursday, June 5 with Annea Lockwood’s Bayou-Borne, an affectionate tribute to Pauline Oliveros, and culminates with Marcos Balter’s Pan from Chase’s Density 2036 project. Balter’s already iconic Pan (2017–18) is a musical drama for solo flute, live electronics, and an ensemble of community musicians. The all-ages, all-abilities Pan ensemble—a kind of 21st-century Greek chorus that serves as the conscience of the community in this telling of the Greek myth—is assembled newly in each city to which the work travels.
Friday, June 6 begins with an early morning program featuring the JACK Quartet with works by Tania León, Liza Lim, and two emerging composers, Vicente Atria and Eduardo Aguilar. The Libbey Bowl concert on Friday at 10:30am celebrates the old made new in Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Impressions for harpsichord and the world premiere of Alex Peh’s trio arrangement of Terry Riley’s Pulsing Lifters and ends with a “summit meeting” between Craig Taborn and Cory Smythe, two inventive composers and pianists whose worlds encompass creative music, free jazz, new music, and beyond.
In its West Coast premiere, Australian composer Liza Lim’s Density 2036 contribution Sex Magic for solo contrabass flute and electronics centers Friday afternoon. Inspired by Claire Chase’s towering contrabass flute (Bertha), Sex Magic evokes and celebrates women’s power across time and cultures, evoking the giant bass flutes of Papua New Guinea and the Australian didgeridoo in a work that ritually moves across three altars, creating a mystical, mesmerizing evocation of both the present and the timeless past.
Terry Riley’s The Holy Liftoff will be featured on the Friday evening Libbey Bowl concert. Claire Chase partners with the JACK Quartet in a 45-minute rendition realized in collaboration with Samuel Clay Birmaher that was conceived as a series of musical sketches and brilliantly colored drawings. Of Riley’s Density 2036-commissioned work Chase said, “At 90 years old, Terry is on fire with ideas. He’s creating new forms and inciting collaborations with urgency and vitality. For Ojai, we are imagining the limitless variations, realizations, and possible interpretations of his ‘liftoff’ to include both performers and audiences.” Music for a “chorus of cellos” by Sofia Gubaidulina and Julius Eastman precede The Holy Liftoff.
On Saturday, June 7, the first Libbey Bowl concert of the day centers on the West Coast premiere of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Density 2036 commission Ubique for flute, two cellos, piano, and electronics. Thorvaldsdottir describes the work as “inspired by the notion of being everywhere at the same time, an enveloping omnipresence, while simultaneously focusing on details within the density of each particle, echoed in various forms of fragmentation and interruption and in the sustain of certain elements of a sound beyond their natural resonance. Throughout the piece, sounds are both reduced to their smallest particles and their atmospheric presence expanded towards the infinite.”
Saturday afternoon continues with the West Coast premiere of composer-pianist Craig Taborn’s Busy Griefs and Endangered Charms for flute, clarinet, cello, piano, and electronics. Composed for Chase’s Density 2036 project, Taborn’s critically acclaimed piece was inspired by a dream in which plants awake, blossom, grow, and change as the dreamer walks through a garden. (A second performance of Taborn’s Busy Griefs and Endangered Charms will be offered on Sunday afternoon, June 8.) At the Libbey Bowl that evening is a program of music by Bach, Sofia Gubaidulina (inspired by Bach), and Tania León, concluding with Liza Lim’s large-scale How Forests Think, a work inspired by the imagery of ancient forests as vibrant, symbiotic communities that, as Lim writes, “nourish the old connections and keep a song going. One might think of a forest as a choir or certainly as an ensemble. Stories, dreams, and thoughts inhabit multiple forms in a living matrix.”
On Sunday, June 8, the JACK Quartet explores their ongoing Modern Medieval project at Libbey Bowl, with music from the 14th to 17th centuries renewed for contemporary performance by composers/JACK violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman. The program includes the West Coast premiere of Susie Ibarra’s Sky Islands, a musical tribute to rich and fragile ecosystems inspired by the distinct rainforest habitats of Luzon, Philippines. The work features the interlocking rhythms and melodies of Philippine Northern style bamboo, gong, and flute music, performed on new sound sculptures of gong metals. Sky Islands is described as “a musical call to action, drawing awareness to dwindling biodiversity, changing climate, and global community practices.”
An exuberant all-company 2025 Festival finale on Sunday afternoon includes music by Leilehua Lanzilotti, Pauline Oliveros’s The Witness and the world premiere of a new version of Tania León’s Singsong adapted for solo flute. The Festival culminates in the world premiere of Terry Riley’s Pulsefield 3,in ajoyous celebration of the composer’s 90th birthday.
COMMUNITY OFFERINGS An integral part of the immersive Ojai Festival experience are the free community events in Libbey Park and throughout Ojai. The 2025 schedule will include two “Morning Meditations.” On Saturday, June 7 at the Ojai Meadows Preserve, in a collaboration with the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy, the free event will feature the music of Pauline Oliveros and Susie Ibarra. On Sunday, June 8 at Chapparal Auditorium, the Morning Meditation will include music of Leilehua Lanzilotti, Bahar Royaee, and Anna Thorvaldsdottir. During Festival weekend, Annea Lockwood’s Housatonic sound installation will be open to Festival patrons and the community. The annual family concert at the Libbey Gazebo will take place on Sunday following the Libbey Bowl morning concert with featured artists.
OJAI FILMS The Ojai Music Festival welcomes the return of showcasing documentaries during the weekend at the recently remodeled Ojai Playhouse. The two films featured will be Deep Listening: The Story of Pauline Oliveros and 32 Sounds. Deep Listening is a documentary film project by Daniel Weintraub. Produced in collaboration with executive producer lone, Oliveros’s partner in life and work, and the Ministry of Maat, Inc., the film combines rare archival footage, live performances, and unreleased music with appearances by Terry Riley, Anna Halprin, lone, Linda Montano, Laurie Anderson, Thurston Moore, Alvin Lucier, Claire Chase, Miya Masaoka, Morton Subotnick, Tony Martin, Ramon Sender, and many more ground-breaking artists. 32 Sounds is a film by Sam Green, with music by JD Samson. This immersive documentary and profound sensory experience explores the elemental phenomenon of sound. The film is a meditation on the power of sound to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world around us.
EXPERIENCE THE 79TH OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL, JUNE 5 TO 8, 2025 Single tickets and day passes are available and may be purchased at OjaiFestival.org or by calling (805) 646-2053. Single tickets range from $55 to $175 for reserved seating in the Libbey Bowl. General admission for the Lawn in Libbey Bowl is $25, and add-on event prices are $55. Ojai Films can be purchased directly at OjaiPlayhouse.com. Student discounts and group sales are available by inquiring with the Festival Box Office at [email protected].
CLAIRE CHASE, MUSIC DIRECTOR Claire Chase, described by The New York Times recently as “the North Star of her instrument’s ever-expanding universe,” is a musician, interdisciplinary artist, and teacher. Passionately dedicated to the creation of new ecosystems for the music of our time, Chase has given the world premieres of hundreds of new works by a new generation of artists. She was the first flutist to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2012, and in 2017 was the first flutist to be awarded the Avery Fisher Prize for Classical Music from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Chase served as the Richard and Barbara Debs Creative Chair at Carnegie Hall in the 2022–23 season and serves as the Music Director for the 2025 Ojai Music Festival. Previously, Chase performed at the Ojai Music Festival with the International Contemporary Ensemble in 2015 with that year’s Music Director Steven Schick, in 2016 with Music Director Peter Sellars, and in 2017 with Music Director Vijay Iyer.
Chase has performed as a soloist recently with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, and London Philharmonia. This season, Chase toured Europe and Japan with the premiere of a new double concerto by Dai Fujikura for flute and violin (with collaborators Leila Josefowicz and Akiko Suwanai). In the 2022–23 season, Chase premiered a new double concerto by Felipe Lara with the vocalist and bassist esperanza spalding and the conductor Susanna Mälkki, which was named one of the Best Classical Music Performances of the Year by The New York Times.
In 2013, Chase launched the 24-year commissioning project Density 2036, described by The New Yorker as “a quarter-century journey with little precedent.” Now in its twelfth year, Density reimagines the solo flute literature through commissions, performances, recordings, educational initiatives, and a community-focused approach to cultural production. In 2023, Chase performed all ten Density programs to date in a weeklong series of events co-produced by Carnegie Hall and The Kitchen. Central to the Density project is a commitment to supporting an international, multigenerational community of flutists who will take the Density repertoire in bold new interpretive directions. The Density Fellowsprogram, launched in 2023 in celebration of the tenth anniversary,provides an international cohort of emerging flutists with the resources to make the Density repertoire their own. Chase is the artistic director of Density Arts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of the flute in the 21st century.
As an undergraduate at Oberlin Conservatory, Chase co-founded the International Contemporary Ensemble, a collective of musicians, digital media artists, producers, and educators committed to creating collaborations built on equity and cultural responsiveness. She served as the ensemble’s artistic director until 2017 and as an ensemble member on performance and educational projects on five continents, developing an artist-driven organizational model that resulted in the premieres of more than 1,000 new works and earned the group multiple Chamber Music America/ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, the Trailblazer Award from the American Music Center, and the Ensemble of the Year Award from Musical America Worldwide.
A deeply committed educator, Chase is Professor of the Practice in the Department of Music at Harvard University, where she teaches courses on contemporary music, interdisciplinary collaboration, and cultural advocacy. Chase is also Creative Associate at The Juilliard School, where she mentors young artists and engages students in a range of interdisciplinary projects. With her longtime colleague Steven Schick, she co-founded Ensemble Evolution at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, a three-week intensive for the next generation of interdisciplinary artists, curators, and teachers. Chase’s Debs Creative Chair residency at Carnegie Hall encompassed programming for all ages, including a “Day of Listening” for children and families inspired by the listening philosophies of Pauline Oliveros. Chase partnered with MacArthur Fellow Josh Kun and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles to expand her Pauline Oliveros project as part of the PST ART x Science Collide festival in November 2024.
Claire Chase’s extensive discography includes eight solo albums of world premiere recordings and dozens of collaborative recordings with ensembles, composers, and sound artists from a wide range of musical genres. Chase grew up in Leucadia, California, with the childhood dream of becoming a professional baseball player before she discovered the flute. She lives in Brooklyn.
ARA GUZELIMIAN, ARTISTIC AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Ara Guzelimian is the 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. He continues at Juilliard as Special Advisor.
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 & Museum in New York City.
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, 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, open-minded, and openhearted programming in the most beautiful and welcoming of settings, with audiences and artists to match its aspirations. Now in its 78th 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 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. 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.
“There’s no place in the world like Ojai, and there is no gathering of musicians and ideas like the Ojai Festival….the Festival has taken on mythical dimensions for me. — Claire Chase, 2025 Music Director
This symbol indicates that this is a Beyond the Bowl event, not located at Libbey Bowl. Due to the intimate setting of these events, they are not automatically included in Libbey Bowl Passes and may require the purchase of an additional ticket.
This symbol indicates that this is a free event, no ticket or RSVP required.
Programs and artists are subject to change. Schedule as of April, 2025.
A festive opening night with Annea Lockwood’s Bayou-Borne, an affectionate tribute to Pauline Oliveros, then culminating in Marcos Balter’s Pan, an already iconic work from Claire Chase’s epic Density 2036 project. Pan is a deeply affecting work that explores the life and death of the mythical Greek goat-god Pan, written for flute, electronics, and a community of musicians, telling the tale of this weaver of melodies and a guardian of the wilderness – true to the Ojai spirit!
FRI 06|06
8:00AM OJAI DAWNS Zalk Theater, Beasant Hill School
Liza LIMCardamom (US Premiere) Eduardo AGUILAR HYPER (West Coast premiere) Tania LEÓNAbanico Vicente ATRIA Roundabout (West Coast premiere)
Early morning program featuring JACK Quartet with works by Tania León, Liza Lim, and two exciting emerging composers, Vicente Atria and Eduardo Aguilar.
A program of works by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Cory Smythe, and Craig Taborn that celebrates the old made new in Thorvaldsdottir’s Impressions for harpsichord as well as a summit meeting between two dazzlingly inventive composer/pianists whose worlds encompass jazz, new music, and beyond.
In its West Coast premiere, Australian composer Liza Lim’s Density 2036 contribution Sex Magic for solo contrabass flute and electronics centers Friday afternoon. Inspired by Claire Chase’s towering contrabass flute (Bertha), Sex Magic evokes and celebrates women’s power across time and cultures, evoking the giant bass flutes of Papua New Guinea and the Australian didgeridoo in a work that ritually moves across three altars, creating a mystical, mesmerizing evocation of both the present and the timeless past.
Leilehua LANZILOTTIko’u inoa Sofia GUBAIDULINA Mirage: The Dancing Sun Julius EASTMAN The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc Terry RILEY The Holy Liftoff (Realization by Samuel Clay Birmaher)
Music for a “chorus of cellos” by Julius Eastman precede The Holy Liftoff, the most recent work by pioneering American composer Terry Riley, played in Ojai by Claire Chase and the JACK Quartet. Written as a series of musical sketches and brilliantly colored drawings, an exuberant and energized work represents a culmination for Riley, who says “I feel like this piece sums up a lot of things I’ve worked for.”
A program centered on the West Coast premiere of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Ubique for flute, two cellos, piano and electronics, a work of enigmatic lyricism by a composer who is inspired by the “musical qualities of nature.”
1:00PM OJAI FILMS Ojai Playhouse
Deep Listening: The Story of Pauline Oliveros Film by Daniel Weintraub
Annea Lockwood’s sound map of the Housatonic River, captured as a four-channel sound installation. Complete cycles of the work begin at 2pm and 3:30pm. Casual drop-ins welcome at any time.
Free and open to the public
3:30PM OJAI AFTERNOONS Greenberg Center, Ojai Valley School
A concert centered on the West Coast premiere of Busy Griefs and Endangered Charms for flute, clarinet, cello, piano and electronics by the endlessly inventive composer-pianist Craig Taborn. The work is inspired by a dream in which plants awake, blossom, grow and change as the dreamer walks through a garden.
JS BACH Chorale Prelude, Vor deinen Thron, BWV 668 Sofia GUBAIDULINA Meditation on the Bach chorale Vor deinen Thron, BWV 668 Tania LEÓNHechizos Liza LIMHow Forests Think
Music by Bach, Sofia Gubaidulina (inspired by Bach) and Tania León, precede the West Coast premiere of the large-scale How Forests Think by Liza Lim, a work inspired by the imagery of ancient forests as vibrant, symbiotic communities that, as the composer writes, “that nourish the old connections and keep a song going. One might think of a forest as a choir or certainly as an ensemble. Stories, dreams, and thoughts inhabit multiple forms in a living matrix.
Modern Medieval (arr. Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman) Susie IBARRA New work for sheng and percussion (World premiere) Tania LEÓNRitual Susie IBARRASky Islands (West Coast premiere)
The JACK Quartet explores Modern/Medieval with music from the 14th to 17th centuries, renewed for contemporary performance by composers/JACK violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman. The program is followed by the West Coast premiere of Susie Ibarra’s Sky Islands, evoking a unique environment of the elevated rain forests in the Philippines with the interlocking rhythms and melodies of Philippine Northern-style bamboo, gong, and flute music, performed on new sound sculptures of gong metals.
Annea Lockwood’s sound map of the Housatonic River, captured as a four-channel sound installation. Complete cycles of the work begin at 2pm and 3:30pm. Casual drop-ins welcome at any time.
Free and open to the public
2:30PM OJAI AFTERNOONS (repeat performance) Greenberg Center, Ojai Valley School
A concert centered on the West Coast premiere of Busy Griefs and Endangered Charms for flute, clarinet, cello, piano, and electronics by the endlessly inventive composer-pianist Craig Taborn. The work is inspired by a dream in which plants awake, blossom, grow, and change as the dreamer walks through a garden.
Leilehua LANZILOTTIko’u inoa Pauline OLIVEROS The Witness Tania LEÓNSingsong (World premiere of solo version) Terry RILEY Pulsefield 3 (World premiere)
An exuberant all-company 2025 Festival finale includes music by Leilehua Lanzilotti, Pauline Oliveros’s The Witness, and the world premiere of a new version of Tania León’s Singsong adapted for solo flute. The Festival culminates in the world premiere of Terry Riley’s Pulsefield 3, in a joyous celebration of the composer’s 90th birthday.
Each year, the Ojai Music Festival Arts Management Internship Program welcomes a dozen college students and recent graduates to go behind the scenes of a renowned summer music festival. Interns work closely with the staff and production team, providing critical support and simultaneously gaining invaluable hands-on experience and skills for their future careers.
“As an intern for the Ojai Music Festival, you become a messenger for the organization’s purpose: to dare the audience to be innovative listeners of new music. The office staff and other interns become your mentors and family for the duration of your internship experience. Working with like-minded people creates the perfect atmosphere for discussion and pushes you to be your best creative self.”
Emily Persinko, San Diego State University, Ojai Alum 2016-2018
About the Program
The Festival invites students from all fields of study to apply for our internship program. The program is ideally suited for curious, motivated individuals who are interested in the diversity of possible careers in either the arts, live event management, or the nonprofit world. Festival interns have gone on to have successful careers in both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. Those who have gone on to work in the arts have done so at organizations across the country, including the AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company), International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Pacific Symphony, Early Music Guild of Seattle, and Voices of Change, as well as forged new paths as entrepreneurial performing artists and composers.
Each intern receives during their two-week internship:
An immersive experience within a world-renowned music festival in addition to inside knowledge into the many different pieces that come together for a successful weekend of concerts
Training for their areas of responsibility from staff as well as leaders in the field
Free and discounted tickets to Festival concerts (as much as work schedule and ticket availability allow)
Housing and/or homestay in the beautiful Ojai Valley and most meals during the Festival
Stipend
Production Fellowship
Previous experience in production and/or previous internship with Ojai Music Festival is strongly preferred. The production intern fellow will get hands on experience in details that help create a successful experience for musicians, patrons, and other production staff.
“I had an incredible experience as an intern and got a first-hand look at what life as a stage manager and concert producer is like, and knew exactly what I wanted to do as a career! Shortly after the internship, using the skills I gained and my experience working with high-level artists, I secured several professional stage managing and artist liaison gigs in Santa Barbara. After graduating, I secured a position at Pacific Symphony in Irvine, CA, working as a production manager in their Youth Ensembles program. I am also grateful to have returned to Ojai every year since as a permanent member of the production team! The skills I picked up from my time at Ojai have been a huge influence on my professional career and I am forever grateful for that opportunity!”
Jonathan Bergeron, University of California Santa Barbara, Production Fellow 2021
Internship Requirements
Applicants must be 18 or over, and current college (undergraduate or graduate) students. Knowledge of classical music is suggested but is not a requirement. Interns commit to 1-2 weeks in Ojai and must be available during the Festival week (June 3-9, 2025). Please indicate on your application if you have special schedule requirements.
Festival interns have come from colleges and universities throughout the country. Expand to see the list!
“If you want to grow your interpersonal skills, understand the music industry, and learn more about contemporary music, this is a really great experience.”
Complete the internship application: fill out the forms, select your department interests (listed below), respond to the two essay questions, and return with a cover letter and resume. The application form is at the bottom of this page.
Submit two letters of recommendation: Letters from college faculty should include both how the applicant would benefit from the Internship, and how the Internship would strengthen the applicant’s specific college and career goals. Letters from college faculty must be on school letterhead. These letters may be uploaded with the application or sent to the office directly.
“It is exciting to see modern music and a large audience interested in new things. I enjoyed hearing such versatile musicians. Nice balance of density of events. I learned so much!”
Each of the Festival’s internship opportunities places interns in a specific area of responsibility, enabling them to gain specialized experience. However, the multilayered nature of the Festival means that interns will often assist in many different departments, as projects require. Read the brief descriptions below to see what might best interest you and indicate your interests in order of preference when you apply. The “good fit for” is not at all a requirement, just a suggestion.
Audio/Sound
The audio/sound intern works with the production team and the sound designer for the Libbey Bowl concerts.
A good fit for: interns interested in gaining experience in sound design and logistics.
Development and Special Events
Development and special events interns work with the Director of Development to produce the various social and donor events throughout the Festival. They also manage RSVP lists, coordinate and schedule vendors, create materials, and assist with other fundraising projects.
A good fit for: interns interested in gaining experience in special events coordination and fundraising.
Patron Experience (Front-of-House)
Patron Experience interns work with the Front-of-House team including the House Manager and Lead Usher to provide a welcoming and hospitable experience for Festival patrons, with attention to safety and security measures.
A good fit for: interns interested in gaining experience in event coordination and gaining experience in patron interaction.
Live Stream
These interns work with our live stream crew which provides a high-quality online broadcast of concerts during the Festival. Live stream interns are also responsible for helping with graphics related to live stream and can handle working with the film crew. Knowledge of Photoshop, Google Docs, I-Movie, and Final Cut Pro.
A good fit for: interns interested in gaining experience in video editing and live-stream, film work.
Stage
Stage interns work backstage and assist Festival stage managers in various performance venues.
A good fit for: interns interested in gaining experience in stage management.
Patron Services (Box Office)
Patron services interns work in the box office, not only selling tickets, but also serving as a guide to the Festival experience for ticket buyers, donors, and community members.
A good fit for: interns who thrive in a fast-paced environment and are interested in gaining customer service, communications, database, and hospitality experience.
Operations
The Operations interns work with the Operations Manager to provide physical and organizational support, including interfacing with the park manager, producer, administration staff, and patrol officers. They are responsible for assisting with signage and off-site communications.
A good fit for: interns looking to gain experience in the hands-on, behind the scenes workings of the Festival.
Production
The production intern works with the Festival Producer to coordinate artists and their needs throughout the Festival. They also work on stage and with the Stage Manager to help produce the Festival’s concerts, manage rehearsals and performances, stage changes, and coordinate between lighting and sound engineers.
A good fit for: interns interested in gaining experience in concert production.
Public Relations and Marketing
Marketing interns work with the Director of Marketing & Communications and other marketing team members in communicating with and coordinating press in the days leading up to and during the Festival. They also assist with the Festival’s social media presence during the Festival and creating and distributing marketing materials.
A good fit for: interns interested in gaining experience in public relations, marketing, and social media.
Patron Services (Retail/Concessions)
Patron services work with the Retail Managers to sell and manage merchandise. They complete pre- and post-inventories, determine signage and décor needs, and provide a warm customer experience during the Festival.
A good fit for: interns interested in gaining experience in customer service and retail management.
“The Ojai Music Festival was an amazing experience. I met great people, listened to fabulous music, and learned about the ins and outs of putting on a music festival. Having a team of interns to hang out with throughout the days was a bonus highlight of my experience. All of the people working with OMF were kindhearted and nice. This experience was extremely rewarding. I learned a lot while I interned at the Ojai Music Festival and can’t wait for next year!!”
Lizzy Tepaske, University of California Santa Barbara, Ojai Alum 2021
Submit your application by filling out the form below. If you are a returning intern, fill out the returning intern application by clicking this button:
Since the Ojai Music Festival’s founding in 1947, volunteers have ensured the enduring success of the organization, from our renowned four-day Festival and our acclaimed BRAVO music education program.
Volunteer opportunities range from ushering at concerts, administrative office work, and concessions to housing Festival artists and production team. The Festival is fortunate to have a large community of volunteers who make the experience even more memorable.
Besides receiving benefits to volunteer that include lawn tickets, a festival commemorative t-shirt and invitations to events, volunteers get to enjoy the camaraderie of working together and meeting interesting music enthusiasts like Jodine Hammerand!
JODINE HAMMERAND: A Return to Ojai and the Music Festival!
What brought you to Ojai? My family was living in Los Angeles when my parents took my siblings and I to Ojai for the week of Spring Break. We all fell in love with Ojai and our family moved here in 1972.
L-R: Wendy Gray and Jodine Hammerand at the Festival’s volunteer event in March, 2024
When did you start your involvement in the Music Festival? I started at Nordhoff High School as a freshman. It was probably my junior year when I started volunteering for the Ojai Music Festival as an usher. I will never forget watching a run-through with the LA Philharmonic that was being conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas!
When did you make your way back to Ojai? After retiring from Alaska Airlines, I ultimately chose to move back to Ojai right at the height of the pandemic. I was interested in volunteering again and finally was able to usher for the 2022 Ojai Music Festival, then again in 2023. It felt like a happy reunion!
What is a recent fond memory of the Festival? I am a lover of all music genres, especially the Blues. I really enjoyed Rhiannon Giddens being the music director in 2023 with her banjo playing. She also introduced the pipa and the kora, two great instruments rooted deep in history. ‘The roots of the present are deep in the past’ my high school history teacher used to always say! I attended the performance of Ghost Opera and enjoyed listening to the pipa with all the instruments. I ushered at the performance of Omar’s Journey and heard the kora played by Seckou Keita. I arrived before the concert as ushers do to prepare the Libbey Bowl. I was walking down the center aisle of seats when I saw Seckou practicing on stage. When he was finished, he looked my way, and I gave him a thumbs up indicating how beautiful he played. He smiled his big smile and that made me very happy, and I will never forget it.
I look forward to volunteering for the Ojai Music Festival. It is a joy every year, no matter the style of music. In addition, I enjoy every year when the staff and volunteers gather together before the Festival, to listen to Ara Guzelimian with his knowledge of the musicians. He is an asset as artistic and executive director.
OJAI, CA- June 11, 2015: Music Director Steven Schick leads ICE in Varese’s Deserts at Libbey Bowl during the 2015 Ojai Music Festival.
“…a musical utopia where open-minded audiences welcome adventurous works presented against a backdrop of green hills, bird song, and Pixie tangerines.” (New York Times)
The Ojai Music Festival audience members and donors are highly educated, affluent and influential. An effective way to reach this desirable group is through advertising in the Festival’s program book.
The Program Book Call us old fashion but our complimentary printed Festival program book has always had the unique quality of being used repeatedly by patrons throughout the four-day immersive experience. Advertising with us is an unbeatable opportunity to reach this loyal core of the music-loving and art-going community and leave a memorable impression. Our program books are also a wonderful keepsake — our patrons refer to it throughout the year!
This perfect-bound collector’s item includes program notes by Thomas May on all Libbey Bowl concerts, free concerts and events, artist and composer bios, in-depth Festival features on the Festival, donor listings, staff and volunteer rosters, maps, FAQ, and much more.
By supporting the Ojai Music Festival as an advertiser, you support Ojai’s signature music event and music education in our Ojai Valley schools.
PLUS — Advertisers are included in the free OMF Mobile App used by patrons throughout the weekend.
Deadlines and Submission of Artwork Space deadline: April 15, 2025 Artwork due: April 21, 2025
Attendance Attendance at the Festival is up to 5000 patrons and community members. Many reference their program books multiple times during the four-day Festival. Ojai Music Festival patrons save and share their books for years as treasured mementos. It is also distributed at key Ojai Valley businesses before the Festival.
Snapshot of Festival Patrons
Upwardly mobile consumers with important purchasing power
Established patrons who support music and arts programs
Dual income families of $250,000 and above
Visits Ojai during the year outside of the Festival weekend
Travel more than three times a year
Highly-educated executives and professionals
Further Inquiries: Contact Gina Gutierrez at[email protected]or 805 646 2181.
(Ojai CA – February 5, 2025) – Composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen returns to the Ojai Music Festival to serve as Music Director for the 80th Festival, June 11 to 14, 2026. Since the late 1940s, the Festival has continued the tradition of appointing a new Music Director each year, fostering vitality and diversity in its programming throughout the years.
“Esa-Pekka Salonen is one of the most inventive, adventurous thinkers of 21st-century musical life. The unique format of the Ojai Music Festival gives him an unusually free creative hand as both composer and conductor. I’m thrilled at the prospect of all that he will dream up,” said Artistic and Executive Director Ara Guzelimian.
Esa-Pekka Salonen, who previously collaborated with the Ojai Music Festival as Music Director for the 1999 and 2001 Festivals, is known as both a composer and conductor. He is the Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony and the Conductor Laureate for the Philharmonia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. As a member of the faculty of the Colburn School, he directs the pre-professional Negaunee Conducting Program. Salonen co-founded, and until 2018 served as the Artistic Director of the annual Baltic Sea Festival.
This season, Salonen leads the San Francisco Symphony in world premieres of works by Nico Muhly, Xavier Muzik, and Gabriella Smith, among many other programs. He also returns to the Philharmonia Orchestra—both in London and on tour in Italy—and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he leads wide-ranging programs including Bryce Dessner’s Violin Concerto with Pekka Kuusisto and Boulez’s Notations with Pierre-Laurent Aimard. With the Orchestre de Paris, Salonen conducts a reprise of his and Romeo Castellucci’s staged production of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection,” and a Boulez Centennial celebration with choreography by Benjamin Millepied, while a Salzburg Easter Festival residency with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra centers on a new Simon McBurney production of Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina.
Salonen’s compositions are programmed with thirteen different orchestras this season. He conducts his own Tiu, kínēma, and cello concerto with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra; he also conducts the cello concerto with The Cleveland Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony. With the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, he leads his Sinfonia concertante for organ and orchestra. His works, led by other conductors, also appear on programs at the Montreal and Aarhus symphony orchestras (Sinfonia concertante), Munich Philharmonic (Insomnia), Lahti Symphony Orchestra (kínēma), Netherlands Radio and Magdeburg philharmonic orchestras (Gemini), Slaithwaite Philharmonic Orchestra (Nyx), Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra (Cello Concerto), and Ensemble intercontemporain (Meeting).
Salonen has an extensive and varied recording career. Releases with the San Francisco Symphony include recordings of Bartók’s piano concertos, spatial audio recordings of several Ligeti compositions, and the GRAMMY® Award-winning (Best Opera Recording) world premiere recording of Saariaho’s Adriana Mater. Other recent recordings include Strauss’s Four Last Songs, Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin and Dance Suite, and a 2018 box set of his complete Sony recordings. His compositions appear on releases from Sony and Deutsche Grammophon, among others; his Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, and Cello Concerto all appear on recordings he conducted himself. Initial details about Mr. Salonen’s 2026 Ojai Music Festival will be shared prior to the 79th Festival, June 5 to 8, 2025, with Music Director Claire Chase. Please visit OjaiFestival.org for information.
ARA GUZELIMIAN, ARTISTIC AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Ara Guzelimian is the 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. He continues at Juilliard as Special Advisor.
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. Prior to the Juilliard appointment, he was Senior Director and Artistic Advisor of Carnegie Hall from 1998 to 2006 and earlier held positions at the Aspen Music Festival and School and at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. 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, open-minded, and openhearted programming in the most beautiful and welcoming settings, with audiences and artists to match its aspirations. Now in 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 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. The intimate Festival weekend, considered a highlight of the international summer music 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, American Modern Opera Company (AMOC*), 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.
79th OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL, JUNE 5 TO 8, 2025, WITH MUSIC DIRECTOR CLAIRE CHASE 2025 Libbey Bowl series passes are available and may be purchased online at OjaiFestival.org or by calling (805) 646-2053. Passes start at $215 for reserved seating. Lawn Area passes start at $90. Single tickets and day passes will go on sale in spring 2025. Follow Festival updates at OjaiFestival.org.
This Privacy Policy describes Our policies and procedures on the collection, use and disclosure of Your information when You use the Service and tells You about Your privacy rights and how the law protects You.
We use Your Personal data to provide and improve the Service. By using the Service, You agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy has been created with the help of the Privacy Policy Generator.
Interpretation and Definitions
Interpretation
The words of which the initial letter is capitalized have meanings defined under the following conditions. The following definitions shall have the same meaning regardless of whether they appear in singular or in plural.
Definitions
For the purposes of this Privacy Policy:
Account means a unique account created for You to access our Service or parts of our Service.
Affiliate means an entity that controls, is controlled by or is under common control with a party, where “control” means ownership of 50% or more of the shares, equity interest or other securities entitled to vote for election of directors or other managing authority.
Application refers to Ojai Music Festival App, the software program provided by the Company.
Company (referred to as either “the Company”, “We”, “Us” or “Our” in this Agreement) refers to Ojai Festivals Ltd., 201 S Signal St.
Country refers to: California, United States
Device means any device that can access the Service such as a computer, a cellphone or a digital tablet.
Personal Data is any information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual.
Service refers to the Application.
Service Provider means any natural or legal person who processes the data on behalf of the Company. It refers to third-party companies or individuals employed by the Company to facilitate the Service, to provide the Service on behalf of the Company, to perform services related to the Service or to assist the Company in analyzing how the Service is used.
Third-party Social Media Service refers to any website or any social network website through which a User can log in or create an account to use the Service.
Usage Data refers to data collected automatically, either generated by the use of the Service or from the Service infrastructure itself (for example, the duration of a page visit).
You means the individual accessing or using the Service, or the company, or other legal entity on behalf of which such individual is accessing or using the Service, as applicable.
Collecting and Using Your Personal Data
Types of Data Collected
Personal Data
While using Our Service, We may ask You to provide Us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify You. Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to:
Email address
First name and last name
Phone number
Address, State, Province, ZIP/Postal code, City
Usage Data
Usage Data
Usage Data is collected automatically when using the Service.
Usage Data may include information such as Your Device’s Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that You visit, the time and date of Your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.
When You access the Service by or through a mobile device, We may collect certain information automatically, including, but not limited to, the type of mobile device You use, Your mobile device unique ID, the IP address of Your mobile device, Your mobile operating system, the type of mobile Internet browser You use, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.
We may also collect information that Your browser sends whenever You visit our Service or when You access the Service by or through a mobile device.
Use of Your Personal Data
The Company may use Personal Data for the following purposes:
To provide and maintain our Service, including to monitor the usage of our Service.
To manage Your Account: to manage Your registration as a user of the Service. The Personal Data You provide can give You access to different functionalities of the Service that are available to You as a registered user.
For the performance of a contract: the development, compliance and undertaking of the purchase contract for the products, items or services You have purchased or of any other contract with Us through the Service.
To contact You: To contact You by email, telephone calls, SMS, or other equivalent forms of electronic communication, such as a mobile application’s push notifications regarding updates or informative communications related to the functionalities, products or contracted services, including the security updates, when necessary or reasonable for their implementation.
To provide You with news, special offers and general information about other goods, services and events which we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about unless You have opted not to receive such information.
To manage Your requests: To attend and manage Your requests to Us.
For business transfers: We may use Your information to evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of Our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which Personal Data held by Us about our Service users is among the assets transferred.
For other purposes: We may use Your information for other purposes, such as data analysis, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and to evaluate and improve our Service, products, services, marketing and your experience.
We may share Your personal information in the following situations:
With Service Providers: We may share Your personal information with Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service, to contact You.
For business transfers: We may share or transfer Your personal information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of Company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of Our business to another company.
With Affiliates: We may share Your information with Our affiliates, in which case we will require those affiliates to honor this Privacy Policy. Affiliates include Our parent company and any other subsidiaries, joint venture partners or other companies that We control or that are under common control with Us.
With business partners: We may share Your information with Our business partners to offer You certain products, services or promotions.
With other users: when You share personal information or otherwise interact in the public areas with other users, such information may be viewed by all users and may be publicly distributed outside. If You interact with other users or register through a Third-Party Social Media Service, Your contacts on the Third-Party Social Media Service may see Your name, profile, pictures and description of Your activity. Similarly, other users will be able to view descriptions of Your activity, communicate with You and view Your profile.
With Your consent: We may disclose Your personal information for any other purpose with Your consent.
Retention of Your Personal Data
The Company will retain Your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use Your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies.
The Company will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of Our Service, or We are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.
Transfer of Your Personal Data
Your information, including Personal Data, is processed at the Company’s operating offices and in any other places where the parties involved in the processing are located. It means that this information may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of Your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from Your jurisdiction.
Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by Your submission of such information represents Your agreement to that transfer.
The Company will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that Your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of Your Personal Data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of Your data and other personal information.
Delete Your Personal Data
You have the right to delete or request that We assist in deleting the Personal Data that We have collected about You.
Our Service may give You the ability to delete certain information about You from within the Service.
You may update, amend, or delete Your information at any time by signing in to Your Account, if you have one, and visiting the account settings section that allows you to manage Your personal information. You may also contact Us to request access to, correct, or delete any personal information that You have provided to Us.
Please note, however, that We may need to retain certain information when we have a legal obligation or lawful basis to do so.
Disclosure of Your Personal Data
Business Transactions
If the Company is involved in a merger, acquisition or asset sale, Your Personal Data may be transferred. We will provide notice before Your Personal Data is transferred and becomes subject to a different Privacy Policy.
Law enforcement
Under certain circumstances, the Company may be required to disclose Your Personal Data if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g. a court or a government agency).
Other legal requirements
The Company may disclose Your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:
Comply with a legal obligation
Protect and defend the rights or property of the Company
Prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service
Protect the personal safety of Users of the Service or the public
Protect against legal liability
Security of Your Personal Data
The security of Your Personal Data is important to Us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While We strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect Your Personal Data, We cannot guarantee its absolute security.
Children’s Privacy
Our Service does not address anyone under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13. If You are a parent or guardian and You are aware that Your child has provided us with Personal Data, please contact Us. If We become aware that We have collected Personal Data from anyone under the age of 13 without verification of parental consent, we take steps to remove that information from Our servers.
If We need to rely on consent as a legal basis for processing Your information and Your country requires consent from a parent, we may require Your parent’s consent before We collect and use that information.
Links to Other Websites
Our Service may contain links to other websites that are not operated by Us. If You click on a third party link, You will be directed to that third party’s site. We strongly advise You to review the Privacy Policy of every site You visit.
We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third party sites or services.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may update Our Privacy Policy from time to time. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you can contact us:
At the Ojai Music Festival, we thrive on experimentation and discovery—both in the music we present and in how we engage with our community. Each year, we take creative risks to offer a unique and transformative experience. But none of this would be possible without our supporters, our passionate music lovers, our community.
Feedback from our patrons is essential to our growth and evolution. Whether it’s thoughts on a particular performance, insights into the festival experience, or suggestions for how we can better serve our audience, their perspective is invaluable.
“Learned a lot. Enjoyed the Libbey Bowl area for relaxed environment, easy parking and other amenities nearby.”
“I loved the music and the entire experience. I can’t wait until next year and might attend a few of this year’s concerts as well.”
“We enjoyed meeting new people and we enjoyed running into people we know but didn’t know that they have attended the Festival for several years (or longer).”
“Every year we wonder how we could possibly top this next year, but it happens – the magic keeps growing!”
“An introduction for me to hear new artists perform whom I ordinarily wouldn’t not be familiar with and to be awakened to new sounds and proficiency of the artists.”
“Lovely, enriching experience for the whole family.”
“It means satisfying my curiosity. It means great people. It means discovery. It means good food. It means beautiful setting. It means staggering artistry.”
As this year rapidly winds down, I wanted to take a moment to savor some favorite moments and glimpses of the 2024 Festival with the wondrous Mitsuko Uchida as Music Director. It was a particularly joyous and rewarding Festival, with the members of Mahler Chamber Orchestra turning up in every corner of Ojai, delighting in their California adventure. Who would have thought a European-based chamber orchestra would have a Johnny Cash cover band in their ranks! Before we let the year recede in memory, here are some personal snapshots of a few public and private moments that I cherish.
Behind the Scenes
photo by Ara Guzelimian.
Mitsuko Uchida, a musician of boundless curiosity and exuberance, getting an orientation on percussion instruments by Festival artist Sae Hashimoto.
photo by Ara Guzelimian.
Mitsuko is one of the most exacting of artists when it comes to pianos. We were very fortunate to have the superb piano technician Joel Bernache as our house piano “doctor” to look after the splendid concert Steinway. Here are both Mitsuko and Joel in action!
Joyful Moments
photo by Ara Guzelimian.
Violinist Alexandra Preucil (with bunny ears) with members of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in their delightful children’s concert in Libbey Park. A few moments after the concert ended, the tiny daughter of friends spied the violinist walking through the park (without the ears!) – she pointed with delight and said, “there’s the bunny,” at which point the extraordinarily kind Alexandra Preucil came to visit with her.
photo by Ara Guzelimian.
One of my favorite new traditions at the Festival is the early morning free meditation concerts at Chapparal Auditorium on Ojai Avenue. Who knew that a hearty audience would turn up at 8 a.m. on a weekend morning to hear some quiet, reflective new music? Never underestimate the Ojai audience! Here’s cellist Jay Campbell with a rapt morning audience.
Photo by Timothy Teague.
I particularly love this photo as it captures the ebullient good spirits felt by all at the 2024 Ojai Festival. We are very lucky in the company we keep.
Looking Ahead
All of us here send you our wholehearted thanks for creating this very special community that is the Ojai Music Festival. I’m always fond of saying the miracle of Ojai is this improbable standard of artistic excellence and innovation that happens to take place in a lovely small town park, with perhaps the most open-eared and open-hearted audience to be found anywhere. The Festival depends to a very large degree – 75% – to contributed income. Please consider making a year-end contribution to help us start the new year with a solid foundation of support. We are grateful to each of you for your continued engagement and so look forward to seeing you in the coming year.
Think about surprising someone with a Libbey Bowl Pass for the Ojai Music Festival in 2025, scheduled for June 5-8 featuring Music Director Claire Chase. From Libbey Bowl passes to individual tickets, you can customize an unforgettable musical journey, perfect for your loved one’s musical tastes. This gift promises not just a fantastic event but also an immersive experience in the enchanting Ojai!
A cozy hoodie or blanket to stay warm. A baseball cap or t-shirt to add to your collection. Purchase your OMF merchandise as a gift for someone special or treat yourself!
The promo code MERRY automatically adds an additional 15% discount. Order soon to ensure it arrives before the holidays.
Mitsuko Uchida and Mahler Chamber Orchestra at the 2024 Festival Finale Concert | Photo by Timothy Teague
It begins with your commitment.
Because of your curiosity and adventurous spirit, Ojai becomes a gathering place where the world’s most innovative musicians connect with an inspired community. You make it possible for us to create transformational experiences year after year.
Your gift today can help sustain this extraordinary tradition.
Alexi Kenney at SOUND+WALK, free member event in Ojai, spring 2024 | Photo by Elizabeth Herring
It begins with your generosity.
Because of you, the Festival’s impact reaches far beyond its four unforgettable days.
In 2025, nearly 3,000 students and seniors in the Ojai Valley will experience the joy of music through our BRAVO Education and Community Programs. Year-round events will foster deeper connections locally, while free livestreams will bring Ojai’s magic to thousands worldwide.
Your gift today ensures that this impact will grow even further.
Claire Chase, 2025 Ojai Festival Music Director
It begins with your adventurous spirit.
Because of you, Claire Chase will present a bold, inventive program inspired by Ojai’s natural beauty and sonic landscapes. Together, we will welcome a vibrant, multigenerational collective of composers, performers, and improvisers to create an unforgettable experience.
Your support makes all this possible. Please join us in creating another extraordinary Festival season by making your year-end gift.
BRAVO Music Van | Photo by Cindy BurtonBRAVO Music Van | Photo by Cindy Burton2024 Festival Finale Concert | Photo by Timothy Teague
A Small Expense with a Great Impact
Throughout the year, the Ojai Music Festival prioritizes community, artistic curiosity, and innovative programs, culminating with our treasured Festival in June. The Festival’s year-round programs are made possible by donations from our loyal audience members, like you!
Recurring gifts allow you to give at the level and timing that works best with both your budget and schedule. They simultaneously allow the Festival to rely on a consistent, year-round revenue stream.
I hope this Thanksgiving week finds you well, with time to reflect and savor the joys of life. This is one of my favorite times of the year – the mornings are suddenly chillier, the sweaters come out of the drawers, the afternoon light is longer and lower on the horizon, we are perhaps more keenly aware of the passing of the year.
It is also a moment to pause and express gratitude. Among life’s many joys, I am deeply grateful for my life in music, keeping company with the most inspiring of musicians and fellow listeners. I started coming to the Ojai Festival when I was barely out of my teens and the lovely community that is created each year in Libbey Park is high on my list of treasurable experiences, an annual tradition that renews and surprises at every turn.
Much of life lately has been at a high decibel level, what with a singularly contentious election year, war and devastation of loss in so many parts of the world, and more locally, the sirens signaling an unusual wildfire season from Camarillo to New York (!). Faced with so much troubling noise, my response has always been to turn to music. So, in that spirit, I offer what I call a “quiet playlist of thanksgiving,” featuring a cross-section of wondrous Ojai artists from the last ten years.
This very personal selection reminds me of beauty, a deep inner life, and the things that we cherish, and which endure apart from all the noise. The tone is set from the start by our 2025 Music Director Claire Chase with Felipe Lara’s Meditation and Calligraphy and includes such treasured Ojai artists as Víkingur Olafsson, the Attacca Quartet (playing John Adams), Julia Bullock, Vijay Iyer, Steven Schick, Mitsuko Uchida, and the JACK Quartet. I want to single out one particular track – Rainy Day from the Silk Road Ensemble’s just-released album American Railroad. One of my fondest memories of the 2023 Festival was the magical duet between Rhiannon Giddens and Wu Man at the closing concert. This is that very piece, a souvenir of a magical Ojai pairing.
I offer this music as our gift, with much gratitude to each of you for all you do to create and nurture this Festival community.
Join us for a special occasion featuring former Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris and now published author. “Always the Music” is the fascinating story of Tom Morris’ personal metamorphosis through the highest levels of the world of classical music, his learning and insights into how storied musical institutions function, great artists create, and audiences engage. The final chapter synthesizes Morris’ career lessons into an unequivocal but thoughtful prescription for the American orchestra. Mostly, though, this is the entertaining story of one man’s lifelong love affair with great music and the people who make it.
THU December 5.2025 | 5:30-7PM | Ojai Music Festival Lounge (201 S. Signal Street)
5:30PM: Enjoy a complimentary wine bar
6:00PM: Book reading and interview with Tom Morris and host Jeremy Turner, followed by a book signing.
We look forward to sharing this special evening with you!
This event is free to Ojai Music Festival friends. Limited seating. RSVP by clicking the link below.
Thomas W. Morris had a distinguished career in the music business, having long service as chief executive of the Boston Symphony and Cleveland Orchestra, as well as artistic director of California’s Ojai Music Festival. His work in Ojai was highly recognized for the span and creativity of programming, as well as the breadth of artists with whom he collaborated.. He was one of the three founding partners of Spring for Music, an innovative orchestra festival held at Carnegie Hall from 2011 to 2014, and he has consulted nationally and internationally with over 75 orchestras and performing organizations. With a Bachelor of the Arts degree from Princeton University, as well as an MBA from the Wharton School, Morris is well versed in music, finance, marketing, fundraising, management and leadership. He is frequently sought out by major media as an expert to comment on music business issues of the day and has been featured in The New York Times, The L.A. Times, The New Yorker, and more. A percussionist, he has performed extensively in Boston Symphony, Boston Pops and the Blossom Festival Band. Thomas W. Morris | About
About Jeremy Turner
Composer, conductor, and multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Turner is known for creating innovative and diverse music for the moving image and the stage. He is a two time EMMY® nominee, has won the Music + Sound Award, an ASCAP Screen Music Award, an International Documentary Association Award, the AICP Award, and has been listed in NPR Music’s Favorite Songs of the Year. Jeremy regularly writes film and television scores for Disney+, HBO, Netflix, MAX, and Hulu; simultaneously creating concert music and composing for collaborative installations. Recent works include the score for the upcoming MRC film Let’s Have Kids!, directed by Adam Sztykiel; Shorebirds, a piece for solo violin premiered by Simone Porter at Lotusland in Montecito, California; and The Coast of Industry (2024), an art installation that recently opened at MASS MoCA.Performing throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, Jeremy has participated in the music festivals of Aspen, Ravinia, Tanglewood, Seattle, La Jolla, Moab, Sarasota, Interlochen, and Music at Plush. He has conducted twice at the LACMA Art + Film gala, has performed collaborations for Saint Laurent and Dolce & Gabbana, and conducted in New York’s Central Park for Ralph Lauren’s 50th Anniversary.
As a composer, his music has been heard around the world, from Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House. Noted works include The Inland Seas, composed for violinist James Ehnes and mandolinist Chris Thile and commissioned by the Seattle Chamber Music Society; Suite of Unreason, a commission from the Music Academy of the West for their 70th Anniversary season; and a choral work for the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Wave Hill in New York. He has written music for The Jack Quartet, yMusic Ensemble, Brooklyn Rider, and Flux Quartet, as well as five installation pieces with the artist Chris Doyle. Jeremy Turner Studio
The 79th Ojai Music Festival, June 5 to 8, 2025, welcomes as Music Director one of today’s most vital artists flutist Claire Chase. Reflecting on Ojai’s natural and sonic environment, 2025 Festival programming offers responses to landscape, as caretakers and participants, and welcomes a multi-generational collective of composers, performers, composer-performers, and improvisers, as well as multimedia artists whose works defy categorization.
The 79th Ojai Music Festival, June 5 to 8, 2025, welcomes as Music Director one of today’s most vital artists flutist Claire Chase. Reflecting on Ojai’s natural and sonic environment, 2025 Festival programming offers responses to landscape, as caretakers and participants, and welcomes a multi-generational collective of composers, performers, composer-performers, and improvisers, as well as multimedia artists whose works defy categorization.
West Coast Premieres of Liza Lim’s Sex Magic, Craig Taborn’s Busy Griefs and Endangered Charms, Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Ubique, Susie Ibarra’s Sky Islands, and Terry Riley’s Pulsefield
The Festival celebrates multiple generations of composers, including residencies by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Tania León, Annea Lockwood, Liza Lim, and Marcos Balter; composer-performers include Craig Taborn (piano), Leilehua Lanzilotti (viola), and Susie Ibarra (percussion)
An all-star “meta-ensemble” of Festival musicians including Seth Parker Woods, cello; Wu Wei, sheng; Steven Schick, conductor and percussion; the JACK Quartet (violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell); Katinka Kleijn, cello; Cory Smythe and Alex Peh, piano and keyboards; Ross Karre, percussion; Joshua Rubin, clarinet; M.A. Tiesenga, saxophone and electronic hurdy-gurdy; and members of Australia’s ELISION Ensemble
Agave Maria’s Restaurant and Cantina 
Bonnie Lu’s Country Cafe
Farmer and the Cook
Feast Bistro
Los Caporales Restaurant
NoSo Vita
Ojai Beverage Company
Ojai Cafe Emporium
Ojai Coffee Roasting Co.
Osteria Monte Grappa
Rainbow Bridge
Suzanne’s Cuisine
The Ojai Vineyard 
The Ranch House
OJAI VALLEY INN & SPA | 805 646 1111
BLUE IGUANA INN | 805 646 5277
CASA OJAI | 800 255 8175
EMERALD IGUANA INN | 805 646 5277
OAKRIDGE INN | 805 649 4018
THE OAKS AT OJAI | 805 753 OAKS (6257)
SU NIDO INN | 866 646 7080
CROWNE PLAZA (Ventura) | 800 842 0800
