3 minute read

Early, Not Old

from 2023 Ojai Music Festival Program

from 2023 Ojai Music Festival Program, page 114

Ojai Music Festival Arts Manag...

This summer’s Festival seeks to cross borders not only in the geographical sense but across time as well. The area generally known as “early music” has in fact turned out to have remarkably liquid borders. The antiquarian preoccupations that once underscored the alienness of early music are increasingly giving way to engagement by contemporary composers and performers who sense an affinity of values.

“Early music didn’t sound ‘old’ to me,” says Francesco Turrisi, recalling his discovery of parallels between early music and jazz in their attitude toward improvisation. His dual grounding in folk and early music further deepened this sense of the ongoing relevance of music from centuries ago.

Turrisi points to the connections between Renaissance and early Baroque music, especially from Italy, and folk sources: “There was much less of a distinction between classical and folk music, especially in the dance rhythms, the melodic quality of that music, and a certain type of improvisation. But things changed very dramatically after those times, and early music speaks to me in a different way,” he adds. This was roughly around the time that the concept of a “standard repertoire” started taking shape in Western music — a powerful tool for reinforcing musical borders.

Turrisi is interested in exploring the idea of early music from several angles on this program — during the “very magical time” of Sunday morning on the final day of the Festival, as Ojai Music Festival Artistic and Executive Director Ara Guzelimian puts it. There will also be new music Turrisi has written, which is inspired by early music. The use of period instruments became a signature of the early music revival in the last century. We will hear various mixes of old and modern instruments as well as instruments that are not part of the tradition of Western music.

Wu Man, for example, presents the oldest music on the program, sharing her research into the music scrolls from the caves in Dunhuang — an important crossroads on the ancient Silk Road, on the edge of the Gobi Desert in China — which date back some 900 years. “This will give the audience a sense of what early Chinese music sounded like,” she says. “These are very simple melodies in the low register, not pentatonic and very different from the Chinese music we think of today.”

“We both have a very similar way of looking at these things,” says Rhiannon Giddens of her collaboration with Turrisi. “Both of us want to tear down false notions that you can only do a certain kind of music in a concert.”

The versatility of weaving in early music from different eras and cultures is the point — and that includes sharing the musical material itself among instruments from different contexts, whether cello, pipa, or kamancheh. The path from ancient Persia to modern jazz is shorter than we imagined…

This concert is approximately 90 minutes.

Sunday, June 11, 2023 | 1:00pm

Libbey Park

Free Community Event

Steven Schick percussion

Stones and Stars: Listening to (and beyond) the World

Lei LIANG Trans

Conversation: How does what we hear help us tell our stories?

John CAGE 4’33”

Conversation: How does what we hear help us know where we are?

Frederic RZEWSKI To the Earth

Conversation: How does what we hear help us imagine our future?

Group Performance Stones and Stars

Wendell’s History for Steve Gustavo Aguilar (voice and playback)

We know that Ojai looks beautiful: the nearby mountains, the pretty streets of the town, the pink moment. But what does it sound like? Let’s discover that together through a series of musical works inspired by the environment, conversations designed to bring us closer to the sounds of this beautiful place, and ultimately a group composition/ performance, which will turn the audience into a large percussion ensemble. Join us for an event designed to open our ears and our hearts.

—STEVEN SCHICK