Ojai Festival Opens 

Pianist and conductor Mitsuko Uchida, Musical America’s 2022 Artist of the Year and a Grammy nominee in 2023, serves as music director of this year’s Ojai Music Festival, the 78th edition of four days of musical brainstorming in an enchanted setting amid audiences eagerly anticipating challenge and discovery. The 2024 Ojai Festival takes place June 6-9 – as always, the weekend prior to the start of the Music Academy season – and finds Uchida performing in each evening concert, playing works by Mozart and Schoenberg, two of her cherished if contrasting Viennese Schools composers, the latter marking the 150th Anniversary of his birth. Also appearing this year are the Brentano String Quartet, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and just shy of a dozen other instrumentalists and singers. Among the other highlights are works by Kaija Saariaho woven throughout the festival, including “Dreaming Chaconne,” “Fall,” “Six Japanese Gardens,” and “Lichtbogen,” conducted by the late Finnish composer’s daughter, Aliisa Neige Barrière, while “Shifting Ground” features violinist Alexi Kenney and video projections by Xuan, juxtaposing Baroque works by Bach and Matteis, with recent music by Saariaho, Angélica Negrón, Paul Wiancko, and Salina Fisher. As of this writing, tickets still remain available for all events. Visit www.ojaifestival.org.