Ojai
Posted by: mudwolf on 15 June 2009
Chumash indian word meaning birds nest. for those thinking So Cal is all about hollywood beaches and babes.
http://www.ojaifestival.org/
The Ojai Music Festival was really incredible, talk about tough work to digest. It's a young group called Eighth Blackbird and they were doing as much theater as just music. Sometimes used video or lighting and moved around the stage a lot instead of just being behind music stands. They had colleagues and also people they always wanted to work with collaborate on events.
Friday night Tin hat performed thier own work, then 8BB they did Slide a premier written by Seve Mackey / Rinde Eckertwhich was an absurd fragmented piece about memories and perception with some music video, slides and controlled by a on a guy's Mac Notebook sitting right in front of us.
Saturday 2 concerts Sat AM was Jeremy Denke at piano Charles Ives "Sonatta #1", Bach "Goldberg Variations"
PM premier David Michael Gordon :"Quasi Sinfonia" and then Schoenberg "Pierrot Lunaire", they had memorized it and staged it as a semi ballet with musicians moving around and 2 dancers, Incredible piece I was prepared to not like, cohoreographed by a guy from Met Opera, he said in the talk on getting the commission he listened to 15 minutes of it and got scared and started to sweat. Took him a long time just to get teh score down. And he was amazed that they had memorized the music so they weren't tied to music stands.
Sunday AM Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, wonderful energetic presentation
PM The last concert was called a "Marathon Finale" from 4-8PM and in 3 parts so 2 intermissions which were much needed, everyone got to do solo and small group pieces to showcase their prowess.
Reich's "Double Sextet"
Stravinsky's "Pastoral" and and "4 Russian Songs",
Lee Hyla "We speak Etruscan" which was for bass clarinet and Baritone saxiphone, really quite wonderful, almost jazz.
Victor Ekimovski "Kites Flying" Tavenor's "In Nomine" and Pete Rose "Tall P", it was a group of 4 women playing all sorts of recorders, wonderfully unusual.
Intermission
Stephen Hartke "Meanwhile: Incidental music to imaginary puppet plays", 8BB
Steven Mackey Heavy Light. He was on electric guitar and did a lot of sensitive technical work and used an arm to bend notes then put his foot on peddles to change and record what was next and successively became layered with his own work repeating. I don't know how he kept it all together, Quite wonderful. I'm sure a first for many of the older folk who only listen to acoustic music
Lisa Bielawa "Kafka Songs" wrote it for Carla Kihistedt who told her she was starting to sing while playing her violin. 6 very strange songs based on Kafka's writings and really "dense" violin work with microtones and austere music. Must have been incredibly difficult and was only the 6th time they'd all been played together.
John Cage "Construction #3 done in '41 and really sounded Afro-cuban with 4 percussionists only.
Intermission
David Rakowski "Etudes" Amy Briggs on piano,
Stephane Hartke "Oh them Rats is Mean in my Kitchen", for 2 men on Violins, they added a lot of personality almost acting out the parts of 2 men in personality competition, amusing but wildly technical,
Nathan Davis "Sounder" Premier with 8th BB and to extras and another man's percussion installation in a sycamore tree near us, it was triggered by delayed loops from the group and played on it's own, really quite wonderful fun music. It had a mobile made of dutch clogs, 2 children's pianos, Assorted paddles and metal tubes with electrical switches and metal sticks to strike them. Can't be described.
Last but not least, Louis Andriessen "Workers Union" The last piece started with the six of them all playing the same jazzy piece together and once thru it they started repeating it, one by one people came out to join, and eventually was everyone who had performed walked up on stage on stage to play their instruments , and boy did they rock out, it was the loudest thing I've heard on that stage. And the youthful energy of the group showed thru in the art they produced.
They will be back in the future I'm sure. 5 concerts over 3 days and we skipped a few extra events, it was very tiring but well worth it. in the afternoon we went back to the car just to sit still and listen to sounds of Ojai. Some sirens interrupted Sunday and crows flying by added to one woman's songs. Cool and gray for 2 days then Sunday the sun came out and was warm until 6PM. Better than being hot which has happened in the past.
Now THAT was a festival to be remembered.
glenn
http://www.ojaifestival.org/
The Ojai Music Festival was really incredible, talk about tough work to digest. It's a young group called Eighth Blackbird and they were doing as much theater as just music. Sometimes used video or lighting and moved around the stage a lot instead of just being behind music stands. They had colleagues and also people they always wanted to work with collaborate on events.
Friday night Tin hat performed thier own work, then 8BB they did Slide a premier written by Seve Mackey / Rinde Eckertwhich was an absurd fragmented piece about memories and perception with some music video, slides and controlled by a on a guy's Mac Notebook sitting right in front of us.
Saturday 2 concerts Sat AM was Jeremy Denke at piano Charles Ives "Sonatta #1", Bach "Goldberg Variations"
PM premier David Michael Gordon :"Quasi Sinfonia" and then Schoenberg "Pierrot Lunaire", they had memorized it and staged it as a semi ballet with musicians moving around and 2 dancers, Incredible piece I was prepared to not like, cohoreographed by a guy from Met Opera, he said in the talk on getting the commission he listened to 15 minutes of it and got scared and started to sweat. Took him a long time just to get teh score down. And he was amazed that they had memorized the music so they weren't tied to music stands.
Sunday AM Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, wonderful energetic presentation
PM The last concert was called a "Marathon Finale" from 4-8PM and in 3 parts so 2 intermissions which were much needed, everyone got to do solo and small group pieces to showcase their prowess.
Reich's "Double Sextet"
Stravinsky's "Pastoral" and and "4 Russian Songs",
Lee Hyla "We speak Etruscan" which was for bass clarinet and Baritone saxiphone, really quite wonderful, almost jazz.
Victor Ekimovski "Kites Flying" Tavenor's "In Nomine" and Pete Rose "Tall P", it was a group of 4 women playing all sorts of recorders, wonderfully unusual.
Intermission
Stephen Hartke "Meanwhile: Incidental music to imaginary puppet plays", 8BB
Steven Mackey Heavy Light. He was on electric guitar and did a lot of sensitive technical work and used an arm to bend notes then put his foot on peddles to change and record what was next and successively became layered with his own work repeating. I don't know how he kept it all together, Quite wonderful. I'm sure a first for many of the older folk who only listen to acoustic music
Lisa Bielawa "Kafka Songs" wrote it for Carla Kihistedt who told her she was starting to sing while playing her violin. 6 very strange songs based on Kafka's writings and really "dense" violin work with microtones and austere music. Must have been incredibly difficult and was only the 6th time they'd all been played together.
John Cage "Construction #3 done in '41 and really sounded Afro-cuban with 4 percussionists only.
Intermission
David Rakowski "Etudes" Amy Briggs on piano,
Stephane Hartke "Oh them Rats is Mean in my Kitchen", for 2 men on Violins, they added a lot of personality almost acting out the parts of 2 men in personality competition, amusing but wildly technical,
Nathan Davis "Sounder" Premier with 8th BB and to extras and another man's percussion installation in a sycamore tree near us, it was triggered by delayed loops from the group and played on it's own, really quite wonderful fun music. It had a mobile made of dutch clogs, 2 children's pianos, Assorted paddles and metal tubes with electrical switches and metal sticks to strike them. Can't be described.
Last but not least, Louis Andriessen "Workers Union" The last piece started with the six of them all playing the same jazzy piece together and once thru it they started repeating it, one by one people came out to join, and eventually was everyone who had performed walked up on stage on stage to play their instruments , and boy did they rock out, it was the loudest thing I've heard on that stage. And the youthful energy of the group showed thru in the art they produced.
They will be back in the future I'm sure. 5 concerts over 3 days and we skipped a few extra events, it was very tiring but well worth it. in the afternoon we went back to the car just to sit still and listen to sounds of Ojai. Some sirens interrupted Sunday and crows flying by added to one woman's songs. Cool and gray for 2 days then Sunday the sun came out and was warm until 6PM. Better than being hot which has happened in the past.
Now THAT was a festival to be remembered.
glenn