One Night Only
The Listening Garden x Ojai Music Festival Present 'Deep Listening' with Claire Chase
Ojai Music Festival partners with The Listening Garden for an evening of immersive sonic exploration led by Claire Chase, acclaimed flutist and 2025 Festival Music Director. The event, Deep Listening with Claire Chase, invites attendees to participate in the legacy of electronic music pioneer Pauline Oliveros.
Celebrated for expanding the possibilities of the flute — and sound itself — Claire Chase leads a meditative, community-focused listening session rooted in the radical sonic philosophies of Pauline Oliveros. The evening unfolds into a wider field of sound, featuring DJ sets by modular-synth explorer Colloboh and dublab founder Mark “Frosty” McNeill, who weave together textures from across the sonic spectrum.
Guests can round out the experience with a bento-style Japanese dinner (available for purchase), along with complimentary wine and a traditional tea ceremony.
The evening hints at what’s to come at this year’s Ojai Music Festival, held June 5 to 8 under Chase’s direction, where themes of restoration, reclamation, and sonic innovation take center stage.
Deep Listening: The Story of Pauline Oliveros WILL BE PLAYING IN COLLABORATION WITH OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL JUNE 7 AT OJAI PLAYHOUSE
About Pauline Oliveros and 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’ refers to philosophies and practices that examine the space between the physical phenomenon of hearing and the conscious act 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.”
About the Artists
Claire Chase is a path-breaking flutist celebrated for radically expanding the instrument’s possibilities. Described by The New York Times as “the North Star of her instrument’s ever-expanding universe,” Chase has built a career on bold innovation in new music. In 2013, she launched Density 2036, a 24-year commissioning project to reinvent the flute repertoire, hailed by The New Yorker as “a quarter-century journey with little precedent.” This monumental endeavor, slated to add up to 100 new works by its completion in 2036, taps into the primal power of the flute, pushing it far beyond its delicate reputation. At recent Density performances, Chase has stood as a solitary figure amid an “audiovisual storm,” wielding a contrabass flute (affectionately nicknamed “Big Bertha”) that emits “tones of unearthly, breathy depth, suitable for an audience of whales.”
Chase’s list of accolades and firsts underscores her impact. She was the first flutist ever to win a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship (2012) and the first to receive Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Prize (2017) — high honors typically reserved for more traditional virtuosi. Equally at home premiering unconventional works in alternative art spaces or appearing as a soloist with major orchestras, Chase has given the world premieres of hundreds of new compositions by emerging composers. She often collaborates across genres: in one recent season, she premiered an otherworldly double concerto by Felipe Lara alongside jazz bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spalding, a performance that The New York Times named one of the year’s best. A tireless organizer, Chase also co-founded the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) as an Oberlin student, fostering a new model for performer-driven collaboration that has premiered over 1,000 works. Chase embodies a visionary, community-minded artistry. As Ojai’s 2025 Music Director, she brings her fearlessness and inclusive ethos to the festival, inviting audiences to experience the flute’s past, present, and future in vivid new ways.
Colloboh (real name Collins Oboh) is an electronic music explorer whose journey spans continents and genres. Born in Lagos, Nigeria, and raised in the United States, Colloboh emerged from the DIY electronic scene, teaching himself synthesis and software as a teenager. In 2021, he relocated from Baltimore to Los Angeles to dedicate himself to music full-time, quickly becoming a fixture in the city’s vibrant experimental scene. Armed with a Eurorack modular rig, he crafts what one reviewer called “world-stretching aural journey[s]” that push listeners’ emotions in every direction. His sound palette is strikingly eclectic: the recent EP Saana Sahel (2023, via Leaving Records) veers from post-rave ambience to effusive jazz ecstasy and even touches of classical minimalism. In Colloboh’s tracks, you might catch a shimmering West African rhythm or an interpolation of Debussy, all woven into a lush electronic landscape. This breadth reflects his wide musical upbringing, from the traditional Isoko songs of his Nigerian childhood to the pop of Brenda Fassie and Luther Vandross that he heard growing up. The result is a style that feels expansive yet personal, often built live through improvisatory “one-take” synth jams that give his music an organic, evolving character.
Colloboh’s rise in the avant-electronic world has been swift. His debut EP, Entity Relation (2021), announced an artist with a penchant for electrifying, high-tempo modular compositions – its lead track “RPM+” ratchets up into a “dizzying” whirlwind of beats and bleeps. That same year, Colloboh was invited to join beloved dream-pop duo Beach House as the opener on their nationwide Once Twice Melody tour. Night after night, indie-rock audiences were greeted by his immersive synth sets, and a new following began to form, eager for his forward-thinking sonic adventures. Back in LA, he has continued to turn heads: you might find Colloboh performing a meditative outdoor set under oak trees one week, then sharing a bill with synth pioneer Suzanne Ciani the next. Through it all, Colloboh has remained a “no-nonsense contender” in modern electronic composition — serious about his craft, yet unbound by any single scene or genre. For an event like Deep Listening, he brings an ambient and exploratory sensibility, likely layering textures that complement Claire Chase’s acoustic experimentations while adding his own rhythmic pulse to the evening.
Mark “Frosty” McNeill is a fixture of LA’s underground radio scene, a DJ and producer who has spent decades championing deep listening and musical discovery. In 1999, he co-founded dublab, an internet radio station born from a desire to resist the commercial drift of mainstream broadcasting. What started as a low-budget project has become a cultural institution, celebrated for its unpredictable, freeform programming. On any given day, dublab might offer up Afro-funk, ambient loops, or unearthed live sessions, stitched together with an intuitive sense of flow. At a time when algorithms dominate, dublab remains proudly curated by humans.
McNeill’s own show, Celsius Drop, reflects his wide-ranging ear, mixing cosmic jazz, psychedelic folk, and electronic oddities. He has also produced programming for Red Bull Radio, Marfa Public Radio, and KPFK, always chasing the connective tissue between sound and feeling. As an interviewer, he has sat down with artists including Björk and James Brown, drawing out stories that trace the intersections of music, art, and culture. In one project with the Skirball Cultural Center, he helped design a soundtrack that layered nature sounds, mystic chants, and genre-blurring compositions. His stated mission across all these platforms is to share “transcendent sonic experiences” with listeners, the kind that open your ears and perhaps, as Pauline Oliveros might say, your mind and spirit as well.
MAY 15:
Claire Chase X Ojai Music Festival
Early bird price: $37. Limited seating.
EXPERIENCE THE 79th OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL, JUNE 5 TO 8, 2025
Single tickets and day passes are available for purchase at OjaiFestival.org or by calling (805) 646-2053. Single tickets range from $55 to $165 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 boxoffice@ojaifestival.org.
