Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Ojai Festival Cancels

The Ojai Festival, which was scheduled for June 11-14, 2020, has made the decision to cancel. This edition of the long-running festival was curated by composer/conductor Matthias Pintscher, and would have included the participation of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, one of the world's great contemporary music performance groups. I posted the preliminary schedule in November, 2019, and Pintscher and Chad Smith, now chief executive of the LA Phil, had planned a glorious season. The presence of Boulez's great sur Incises alone might have gotten me there.

I want to note that Ojai's letter explaining the decision is a model of how such news should be communicated: with care, with respect for and acknowledgement of the people involved and the emotions they're feeling, with great tact and courtesy. The letter includes the information that the festival participants had already been notified, as well, meaning no one learned of this on Twitter or from the NY Times. Bravo, Ojai.

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