Ojai Music Festival

Ojai Festivals, Ltd. ("festival") is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation that was incorporated in 1947. Throughout each year, the Ojai festival contributes to southern California's cultural landscape with in-person and online festival-related programming as well as robust educational offerings that serve thousands of public-school students and seniors. The organization's focal point is the world-renowned four-day festival, which takes place in Ojai and is a perennial platform for the fresh and unexpected. The festival'Festivals's mission statement is to enable artists and inquisitive audiences to engage with one another around adventurous programming in the intimate setting of the Ojai valley and reach out beyond the festival and the Ojai community throughout the year to connect with broader audiences. The festival has nurtured many important artists and composers to international prominence since its inception. Through its signature structure of the artistic director appointing a different music director each year, Ojai has presented a "who's who" of music from john adams, amoc (american modern opera company), barbara hannigan, and patricia kopatchinskaja in recent years to the likes of aaron copland, igor stravinsky, michael tilson thomas, kent nagano, pierre boulez, and esa-pekka salonen throughout its history. During the fy22 season, the organization ventured into presenting two successful Festivals - one in september 2021, originally pegged for june 2021, but moved due to the covid-pandemic, and another "normal" festival in june 2022. Highlights: the 75th festival which was held september 16 to 19, 2021, featured acclaimed american composer and conductor john adams as music director. Together with festival artistic and executive director ara guzelimian, adams' curated programs that celebrated and focused on the next generation of composers including samuel carl adams, timo andres, rhiannon giddens, dylan mattingly, gabriela ortiz, gabriella smith, and carlos simon. Additionally, the festival invited some of today's most creative and innovative artists, who included pianist/composer timo andres, attacca quartet, violinist miranda cuckson, pianist vikingur olafsson, members of the los angeles philharmonic new music group, the los angeles chamber orchestra, and freelance musicians from southern California. During this festival, the board of directors and staff leadership implemented a festival covid-safety plan which created best practices and guidelines adhering to the highest standards of health and safety for festival patrons, artists, volunteers, staff, and the great Ojai community. These protocols included proof of vaccination and masking requirements for all artists, production team, staff, volunteers, and patrons. This was well-received by the festival community and the greater Ojai community. The 75th festival, despite the move to the fall, was a highly successful and joyous occasion described by the los angeles times "against unsettlingly uncertain odds, Ojai's 75th anniversary festival happened as hoped and promised, and it was special." Following the festival, the organization continued producing free online Ojai talks for patrons. These engaging and insightful sessions with upcoming 2022 festival artists gave viewers an opportunity to learn about the festival in june and enjoy music via the virtual world. The 76th festival, june 9 to 12, 2022, featured the discipline-colliding collective called amoc (american modern opera company), which comprised of 17 of most adventurous singers, dancers, instrumentalists, choreographers, and composers at work today in music and dance. Amoc was the first-ever multi-disciplinary collective to hold the position of music director in the festival'Festivals's 75-year history. The four-day immersive experience impressively presented nine world premieres, free community events including a family concert in libbey park, and a range of works from vivaldi and bach to julius eastman and hans otte. The festival'Festivals's celebrated bravo music education program was able to begin safe in-person workshops and classes in Ojai public elementary schools. Through its education through music program 660 students in all six elementary schools were served. Thanks to additional funding, bravo launched an artists-in-residence program. It also brought back the imagine concert held at the libbey bowl in the spring of 2022. This was the first time for many upper elementary students to see a live performance since the pandemic. In the fall of 2021, the Ojai music festival'Festivals's second ppp loan was forgiven. The organization was a grant recipient of the California svog (shuttered venue operators grant) receiving $225,000 and was grateful to receive a ventura county grant to assist with funding the festival'Festivals's covid-safety protocol expenses. Even through the challenges of the pandemic, the board of directors, under the leadership of chair jerry eberhardt, took upon the goal to continue working on a comprehensive campaign to ensure the future of the festival. This "future forward" campaign was supported by the board with 100% commitment before the end of the year. The three pillars of the campaign are supporting new artistic programs and works, growth of the bravo education program, and expansion of online initiatives. Through the board's continued efforts, the festival was also able to retire the festival'Festivals's line of credit by the end of august 2022, and the board approved moving $225,000 in the festival'Festivals's endowment. In recent months, the festival also paid off the commercial loan with bank of sierra. The festival has now retired all debts. The 77th Ojai music festival took place june 8 to 11, 2023 and welcomed grammy-winning musician and composer rhiannon giddens as music director. Programs touched on giddens' interests across musical boundaries, from opera and baroque music to black traditions in american roots music, from the classical traditions of music from china and persia to the influence of non-western music on american contemporary music. A few of the concert pillars included the world premiere of omar's journey, an ojai-commissioned work for voices and chamber ensemble drawn from the pulitzer prize winning opera omar; a reimagining of tan dun's pioneering ghost opera; and a performance of carlos simon's between worlds. Featured artists were kayhan kalhor, steven schick, francesco turrisi, wu man, members of the silkroad ensemble, and attacca quartet.