The long-running Ojai Art Center hosts four classic chamber music concerts
each year on selected Sunday afternoons.
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Loves Come and Gone
Sunday, April 28th, 3:00 p.m.
$20 Donation at the Door
Our program "Loves Come and Gone" features sweet and bittersweet classic love songs by American composers from early 20th century to present including works by Leonard Bernstein, Amy Beach, Elinor Remick Warren, Ernst Charles, John Duke, Richard Hageman and Jake Heggie.
Soprano/mezzo soprano Gretchen Johnson began her professional music career as an oboist. After playing in her first opera orchestra, she climbed to the spot light on the stage and has never looked back. She specializes in new music theater and inspires composers to write for her. Her free lance career has led to performances in venues ranging from opera houses to an empty Culver City car dealership to Carnegie Hall and LA’s Shrine Auditorium. She has worked with stage directors as stylistically diverse as Peter Sellars, Meredith Monk and Giorgio Tozzi. As a member of Minnesota Opera’s New Music Theater Ensemble she premiered works by Meredith Monk and the BOBS. Over the past three decades she has collaborated with the LA-based Overtone Industries, premiering six original operas by actress/composer/director O-Lan Jones. In 2021 she appeared in Overtone’s inauguration of “Original Vision,” an annual workshop series assisting composers and librettists developing new operas. Gretchen toured with the Los Angeles Opera’s community tours and was a performer in the composer/playwright studios sponsored by the Audrey Skirball-Kenis Theater Projects. In recitals, she has performed song cycles of Darius Milhaud, Ned Rorem and Richard Wagner. Gretchen is a certified trainer in the GYROTONIC EXPANSION SYSTEM®.
Pianist Armen Guzelimian is acclaimed as a top-ranking collaborative artist, first-rate soloist and much sought-after master vocal coach. Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed wrote, "Guzelimian was understated but superbly detailed and magisterially musical... he is a chamber music master who contributed just the kind of support that makes everyone sound better. He has the discipline and authority that makes freedom possible and responsible, that makes the best chamber music serve as a grand model for society." Guzelimian has appeared with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Philhamonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Michigan Philharmonic, Nebraska Chamber Orchestra, and the American Youth Symphony. In June of 2014 he soloed with the Pasadena Symphony/Pops Orchestra with Michael Feinstein conducting. In 2016 he returned to the The LA Phil Chamber Music series at Disney Hall and toured with young violinist Simone Parker. He has performed with the Rossetti String Quartet, the Spokane Quartet, Los Angeles String Quartet, Camerata Pacifica, at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and Aspen Music Festival.
His recordings on diverse labels including EMI, Angel, Teldec, Nonesuch, Delos, Crystal and Orion are often played on NPR. His latest recording of Armenian Piano Music is available on CD Baby and Amazon. He performed and narrated the Peter Rosen documentary “Shadows in Paradise”. He is on the Classic Arts Showcase and appeared in Robert Altman's film “Short Cuts”. Guzelimian has been a faculty member at Music Academy of the West, USC Thornton School of Music, and has had guest residencies at Eastman School of Music, Loyola University in New Orleans, University of Maryland, College Park, and Aspen MusicSchool. www.armengpianist.com
“Accomplished cellist Virginia Kron has done her best to keep alive the music of our time," says the LA Times. From her extensive career, of special note is her premiere of John Biggs' cello concerto with the New West Symphony and subsequent recording with the Czech National Symphony. Her own, well reviewed original album is “The Crystal Harp”. Long a pillar on cello at California's Cabrillo Festival under the direction of Marin Alsop, Virginia's mastery of the music of our time is matched by recordings and concerts with noted Celtic harpist Kim Robertson. She has long assisted UCSB's Ensemble for Contemporary Music with featured festival performances and in the recording studio. “To a composer, Virginia is what you can only hope for a scant number of times: a performer that will absolutely l-i-v-e with what you’ve written until she can make it leap off the page and into sound-space... the seasoned player who will devote the time necessary to allow the music to ‘cure,’ when it may even take on a lovely ‘patina’ you didn’t know was there!” Jeremy Haladyna UCSB
Sunday, April 28th, 3:00 pm
Ojai Art Center 113 S. Montgomery Street
$20 exact (no change) donation
all tickets sold at door ~ information (805) 640-1158
masks highly recommended
Soprano/mezzo soprano Gretchen Johnson began her professional music career as an oboist. After playing in her first opera orchestra, she climbed to the spot light on the stage and has never looked back. She specializes in new music theater and inspires composers to write for her. Her free lance career has led to performances in venues ranging from opera houses to an empty Culver City car dealership to Carnegie Hall and LA’s Shrine Auditorium. She has worked with stage directors as stylistically diverse as Peter Sellars, Meredith Monk and Giorgio Tozzi. As a member of Minnesota Opera’s New Music Theater Ensemble she premiered works by Meredith Monk and the BOBS. Over the past three decades she has collaborated with the LA-based Overtone Industries, premiering six original operas by actress/composer/director O-Lan Jones. In 2021 she appeared in Overtone’s inauguration of “Original Vision,” an annual workshop series assisting composers and librettists developing new operas. Gretchen toured with the Los Angeles Opera’s community tours and was a performer in the composer/playwright studios sponsored by the Audrey Skirball-Kenis Theater Projects. In recitals, she has performed song cycles of Darius Milhaud, Ned Rorem and Richard Wagner. Gretchen is a certified trainer in the GYROTONIC EXPANSION SYSTEM®.
Pianist Armen Guzelimian is acclaimed as a top-ranking collaborative artist, first-rate soloist and much sought-after master vocal coach. Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed wrote, "Guzelimian was understated but superbly detailed and magisterially musical... he is a chamber music master who contributed just the kind of support that makes everyone sound better. He has the discipline and authority that makes freedom possible and responsible, that makes the best chamber music serve as a grand model for society." Guzelimian has appeared with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Philhamonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Michigan Philharmonic, Nebraska Chamber Orchestra, and the American Youth Symphony. In June of 2014 he soloed with the Pasadena Symphony/Pops Orchestra with Michael Feinstein conducting. In 2016 he returned to the The LA Phil Chamber Music series at Disney Hall and toured with young violinist Simone Parker. He has performed with the Rossetti String Quartet, the Spokane Quartet, Los Angeles String Quartet, Camerata Pacifica, at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and Aspen Music Festival.
His recordings on diverse labels including EMI, Angel, Teldec, Nonesuch, Delos, Crystal and Orion are often played on NPR. His latest recording of Armenian Piano Music is available on CD Baby and Amazon. He performed and narrated the Peter Rosen documentary “Shadows in Paradise”. He is on the Classic Arts Showcase and appeared in Robert Altman's film “Short Cuts”. Guzelimian has been a faculty member at Music Academy of the West, USC Thornton School of Music, and has had guest residencies at Eastman School of Music, Loyola University in New Orleans, University of Maryland, College Park, and Aspen MusicSchool. www.armengpianist.com
“Accomplished cellist Virginia Kron has done her best to keep alive the music of our time," says the LA Times. From her extensive career, of special note is her premiere of John Biggs' cello concerto with the New West Symphony and subsequent recording with the Czech National Symphony. Her own, well reviewed original album is “The Crystal Harp”. Long a pillar on cello at California's Cabrillo Festival under the direction of Marin Alsop, Virginia's mastery of the music of our time is matched by recordings and concerts with noted Celtic harpist Kim Robertson. She has long assisted UCSB's Ensemble for Contemporary Music with featured festival performances and in the recording studio. “To a composer, Virginia is what you can only hope for a scant number of times: a performer that will absolutely l-i-v-e with what you’ve written until she can make it leap off the page and into sound-space... the seasoned player who will devote the time necessary to allow the music to ‘cure,’ when it may even take on a lovely ‘patina’ you didn’t know was there!” Jeremy Haladyna UCSB
Sunday, April 28th, 3:00 pm
Ojai Art Center 113 S. Montgomery Street
$20 exact (no change) donation
all tickets sold at door ~ information (805) 640-1158
masks highly recommended
Please enjoy these short films of some of our wonderful past Music Branch performances. Thank you for your support, and stay safe!