Everything old is new again

Frank Zappa anchors eclectic slate at 64th Ojai Music Festival

VC Reporter, 6/10/2010

Consider the legacy of 1947, a time that belonged not merely to another century but to another age: Harry Truman was president; the baby boom was in full swing as America rode a wave of post-war optimism; the House Un-American Activities Committee had just begun its investigations into communism in Hollywood; and on the radio, Frankie Lane had earned only the first of his 21 gold records, climbing the charts alongside the likes of the Mills Brothers, the Andrews Sisters and Count Basie.

The music of 1947, however, can also suggest that it was perhaps not so long ago after all. It was in 1947 that the Ojai Music Festival was founded, even then an eclectic mix of new and old, the heart of which was, as Christopher Hailey termed it in his history of the festival, “musicians eager to break out of the concert routine and connect with colleagues for whom art means discovery.”

Regarded as something of a haven, if not a retreat, for a veritable “who’s who” in contemporary classical music, the fest has played home to the likes of Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, Kent Nagano and a world-class cast far too numerous to properly credit. Its eclecticism has, through the years, embraced jazz, third stream, the emerging electronic music of the ’60s and ’70s, and the world music explosion of the seventies and eighties, adroitly surfing an ever-cresting zeitgeist with an aptitude to which few institutions can compare.

The spirit of discovery is alive and well in Ojai as the fest — recently lauded by the Los Angeles Times as “perhaps the most important new music event on the West Coast, if not the entire U.S.” — now well into its seventh decade, commences June 10, under the direction of Thomas W. Morris and music director George Benjamin. Between them, they have crafted the type of program for which Ojai has long been known: a wide-ranging bill of Indian ragas, compact opera and a program of orchestral compositions by the late Frank Zappa.

Zappa was drawn to the avant-garde in classical music from the very beginning, seeking out a recording by Edgar Varése after reading record hawkster Sam Goody’s disparaging remarks about it. In The Real Frank Zappa Book, Zappa wrote, “The article went on to say something like: ‘This album is nothing but drums — it’s dissonant and terrible; the worst music in the world.’

“Ahh!” Zappa concluded in the iconoclastic style for which he would become famous, “Yes! That’s for me!” He was not joking — Varése became a profound influence on the young musician from Antelope Valley High School, and though the French expatriate Varése is known for relatively few works, his lasting impact remains. In the Zappa program, which plays Friday, June 10, and includes such selections as “Dog Breath Variations, A Pig With Wings” and “G-Spot Tornado,” Varése’s “Density 21.5” and “Octandre” are sandwiched squarely in the middle of his would-be protégé’s works.

Yet the critics agree, it would be a mistake to dismiss either Zappa’s irreverent style or inclusion in the Ojai program as a mere marketing ploy. “Everyone knows Zappa as a rock and roll musician,” Morris notes, “with the Mothers of Invention, but he was a very serious musician and a very serious composer.” Indeed, Zappa is tied to Ojai as surely as music director Benjamin himself. “You start with George Benjamin,” Morris noted, explaining the logic of this year’s program, “and Benjamin has a connection with the Ensemble Modern; Ensemble Modern has a connection with Zappa.

So by following these links, you can start to find spokes, coming out of the logic.”

Hailing from Frankfurt, Germany, Ensemble Modern — which performs the Fest’s Zappa program (in its West Coast debut) under the baton of Brad Lubman — proves an especially apt choice for the part, having collaborated with Zappa on Everything Is Healing Nicely in 1991 and The Yellow Shark in 1992. The group was a natural for Benjamin to enlist for Ojai 64, as the prolific conductor and composer has himself worked closely with the ensemble for some two decades.

Along with the Zappa program, the Ensemble will perform several concerts, including the maestro’s own Into the Little Hill, a remarkable “compact opera” that offers a tragic take on the tale of the Pied Piper. “It’s a story of the Pied Piper family,” Benjamin explains, “told in a very contemporary way, with the crowd, the minister, the Pied Piper, his child, his wife and two narrators, all played by only two women.” Finnish soprano Anu Komsi and British contralto Hilary Summers, the very duo whom Benjamin had in mind when he composed the piece, take on the daunting parts on Saturday, along with Stravinsky’s “L’Histoire du Soldat Suite.”