2026 OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL - FRIDAY

“The Ojai Music Festival has been raising a finely calibrated ruckus each spring since 1947.”
– Alex Ross, The New Yorker

I have been attending the Ojai Festival since 2009, and it's always a highlight of every year. Come on out for the 4 days, for one day, or one concert. I suggest you look for lodging ASAP, as it will become scarce and expensive the closer you get to the date. I book my AirBnB a year in advance.

Date: Friday, June 12, 8am to 10 pm

Venue: Libbey Bowl, Libbey Park
210 S. Signal St. Ojai, CA 93023
and other venues TBA

TIckets: https://ojaifestival.my.salesforce-sites.com/ticket/#/events/a0SU1000004Tp85MAC
I am getting the lawn tickets for the entire festival

Note: I am not leading any "event". I will be there for the entire festival. If you attend any of the events, send me a message via Meetup and let's get together. I sit on the lawn behind the seating section.

Friday Events:
Ojai Dawns
Zalk Theater, Besant Hill School
FRI 06.12.26 8AM
Performers
Attacca Quartet
David LANG Daisy
George CRUMB Black Angels
The Ojai Dawns Concert is first offered as a benefit to our Member Circle of donors. Learn more here.

Morning Concert
Libbey Bowl
FRI 06.12.26 10:30AM
Performers
Geneva Lewis, violin | Conor Hanick, piano | Jay Campbell, cello | Rose Lombardo, flute | Vicki Ray, piano | Jonathan Hepfer, percussion | Hanzhi Wang, accordion | Todd Moellenberg, harpsichord
Oliver KNUSSEN Reflection
Esa-Pekka SALONEN Arabesques for Olly
Franco DONATONI Ave
Luciano BERIO Sequenza XIII
Iannis XENAKIS Komboï

Ojai Films
Ojai Playhouse
FRI June 12 | 1:00PM
A film selected by Esa-Pekka Salonen, selection to be announced.
TICKETS NOT YET AVAILABLE

Beyond the Bowl: L.A. Dance Project
Greenberg Center, Ojai Valley School
FRI 06.12.26 3:30PM
Performers
L.A. Dance Project | Benjamin Millepied, Artistic Director | Rose Lombardo, flute | Jay Campbell, cello | Nathan Schram, viola | Hanzhi Wang, accordion
The premiere of a program of dances with the brilliant artists of L.A. Dance Project, set to a group of Luciano Berio’s dizzyingly virtuosic Sequenzas.

Evening Concert
Libbey Bowl
FRI 06.12.26 8PM
Performers
Anthony McGill, clarinet | Jay Campbell, cello | Colburn Orchestra | Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
Steven STUCKY Colburn Variations
Esa-Pekka SALONEN kinēma
Witold LUTOSŁAWSKI Grave (Metamorphoses for cello and strings)
Arnold SCHOENBERG Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night)

ESA-PEKKA SALONEN, MUSIC DIRECTOR AND CONDUCTOR
Salonen is renowned as both a composer and conductor. He was recently named Creative Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, effective 2026–27, and Creativity and Innovation Chair of the Philharmonie de Paris and Principal Conductor of the Orchestre de Paris, effective 2027–28. He is the Conductor Laureate of the Philharmonia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and formerly served as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony. He is a faculty member at Los Angeles’s Colburn School, where he founded and directs the Negaunee Conducting Program. Salonen co-founded, and until 2018 served as the Artistic Director of, the annual Baltic Sea Festival.

Festival History: https://www.ojaifestival.org
For seven decades, the Ojai Music Festival has been a laboratory for the special chemistry that results from combining insatiable curiosity with unbounded creativity. The formula is simple: Each year a music director is given the freedom and resources to imagine four days of musical brainstorming. Some have approached their task with caution, fearing that Ojai might be like other places. But, of course, it’s not. More often this unique blend of enchanted setting and an audience voracious in its appetite for challenge and discovery has inspired a distinguished series of conductors, performers, composers to push at boundaries and stretch limits.