Ojai Music Festival

In the early 1920s, a trust organized by Annie Besant, the head of the Theosophical Society, bought 40 acres (160,000 m2) of land in the valley which eventually was used as the official residence of her young Indian protégé, Jiddu Krishnamurti.

The composer John Cage wrote to his lover in 1935, "I was walking and thinking of you in Ojai, an open space of country, and suddenly I knew what wildness was.

Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times said: Ojai's allure made it easy to attract not only name soloists but the best Hollywood musicians for its ensembles.

By 1949, The New York Times was running a composite sketch of participants in that year's festival, illustrating the Juilliard String Quartet rehearsing, the pianist Shura Cherkassky performing and Thor Johnson conducting.

A man of broad musical tastes, Morton was a visionary whose constant curiosity and unwavering integrity shaped the estival's future direction.

In 1962, when Luciano Berio was the composer in residence, he, Milton Babbitt and Gunther Schuller debated for four days the direction of music and where the 12-tone technique, jazz and tradition all fit in.

"[5]The festival has enjoyed collaborations with many highly regarded composers, conductors, directors, and musicians who have been the music director including Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Pierre Boulez, Robert Craft, Michael Tilson Thomas, Lukas Foss, John Adams, Peter Sellars, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Daniel Lewis, Kent Nagano, Simon Rattle, and Rhiannon Giddens[6] to name a few.

In recent years, instrumentalists such as Emanuel Ax, Mitsuko Uchida, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Vijay Iyer, Matthias Pintscher, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and the Emerson String Quartet have served as music director.

In addition to the composers who have served as music director, many others have been resident artists at the festival including Luciano Berio, Milton Babbitt, Peter Maxwell Davies, Elliott Carter, Olivier Messiaen, David Del Tredici, Mauricio Kagel, and György Ligeti.

Musicians and ensembles who appeared included such greats as Oscar Peterson, the Bobby Hutcherson Quartet, Milt Jackson, the Heath Brothers, Ray Brown, the Toshiko Akiyoshi - Lew Tabackin Big Band, and many others.

The concerts were organized by two local board members, syndicated radio show host Fred Hall ("Swing Thing") and Lynford Stewart.

For many years, Ojai Festival posters were designed by renowned modern artists including Robert Rauschenberg, Kenneth Noland, Richard Diebenkorn, David Hockney, and Eliot Porter.