May 28

May 28 Your Guide to the 2025 Ojai Music Festival

From Someone Deep In It

Over the past month, I’ve been producing a podcast for the Ojai Music Festival, which has led to a series of encounters with neighbors on our usual morning dog walks. They emerge from random orchards to ask: Hey Will, what are the best concerts to see at the Music Festival this year?

My answer is typically: Go with the full pass and experience as many events as you can!

It’s just the truth: to get the most immersive festival experience, music enthusiasts should attend as many concerts as possible. This year’s program is super adventurous, with an unprecedented nine — count ’em nine — composers in attendance and a mind-blowing collection of innovative musicians.

Working on the podcast with its host, the artist and writer Christopher Noxon, has meant hours of deep listening, researching pieces performed this year, and interviewing a handful of composers and artists. Here’s my shameless plug — if you haven’t yet done so, check out OJAICAST — interviews include Annea Lockwood, Jay Campbell, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Liza Lim, Marcos Balter, and Claire Chase. The show also has little snippets of music, so you can get a taste of what’s in store.

If you choose the à la carte ticket method, here are some not-to-miss recommendations for the 79th edition, June 5 to 8. The Thursday evening opening concert begins with Alone, a stunning solo flute piece by Marcos Balter. The concert concludes with a theatrical performance called Pan (also by Balter), which is centered around this year’s Music Director, Claire Chase. She plays a full sonic array of flutes, from a tiny ocarina to a pan flute and all the way down to the beefy tones of her contrabass flute, nicknamed Big Bertha. This performance includes community participation, with 18 volunteers who have worked with Claire Chase joining the stage. (I’ll be there too! So, if you’ve been aching to see yours truly at the Libbey Bowl playing bells, wine glasses, and music boxes, get them tickets!)

Friday evening opens with violist/composer Leilehua Lanzilotti performing her hypnotic and gorgeous piece Ko’u inoa. And later on, a ten-cello ensemble (ten!) performs Julius Eastman’s tour-de-force The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc. (btw, ten cellos is my emotional support number of cellos)

In the past, I’ve found the Ojai Music Festival’s Morning Meditation 8 AM concerts to be some of the most sublime moments of the festival. For one, they’re free and often performed in unique spaces. Saturday morning will be under the eucalyptus trees in the Ojai Meadows Preserve, and Sunday’s performance is at the Chaparral Auditorium. A wonderfully chill way to start the day.

Another free event is Annea Lockwood’s surround sound installation of recordings from the Housatonic River at the Move Sanctuary, which will be held on Saturday and Sunday from 2 to 5 PM.

Saturday evening’s concert anchors this year’s theme of the natural world with Liza Lim’s How Forests Think, in which an ensemble interprets the living, breathing sounds of the forests.

The tireless Claire Chase performs another solo flute show on Friday afternoon with Liza Lim’s Sex Magic, a piece that speaks to my own tech-geeky heart. Claire creates all the sounds herself on stage using triggers on the valves of Big Bertha that, at times, resemble tribal drums. Two “altars” are set up at the front of the stage, made with large membranes, on top of which are random, organic objects like shells and pebbles. Claire’s flute agitates low-frequency transducers to make the altar shake, resulting in sonic mechanical glee.

For the first time this year, the beautifully renovated Ojai Playhouse will show films at 1 PM. On Saturday, the Playhouse features "Deep Listening: The Story of Pauline Oliveros." Friday and Sunday are 32 Sounds, an immersive documentary in ultra-surround sound. Be sure to check those out between performances.

Annea Lockwood’s piece Spirit Catchers will be at the Ojai Playhouse for a late-night performance at 10:30 PM on Saturday night. Four artists will be on stage while Annea creates a “diffusion” of their voices in quadraphonic sound.

The Ojai Music Festival concludes on Sunday (June 8) with two world premieres by the almost 90-year-old composer Terry Riley called Pulsefield 2 and Pulsefield 3. Terry surprised Claire with these two spanking-new pieces, and what better place to premiere them than in Ojai? How fortunate are we?

It’s been a real treat learning more about this year’s festival lineup, and I’m certain knowing more about the background, instrumentation, and stories behind the music will enhance my experience tenfold. We dig even deeper in the podcast interviews, so take a listen to those episodes. And if you have any further questions, find me near the orchard at Grand and McNell with Chris and Shorty.

See you at Libbey Bowl!