Ojai Music Festival

Built for $12,000 as a do-it-yourself community project in 1957, rustic Libbey Bowl has always been the little concert stage that could. Russian composer Igor Stravinsky premiered a number of his works at the half-shell amphitheater. His American colleague, composer Aaron Copland, chose the sycamore-tangled setting to debut his conducting career. More recently, surf rocker Jack Johnson packed the bowl with fans of his popular tunes. But time and termites have taken a toll.

THE Ojai Music Festival in charmingly rickety Libbey Bowl is all about presenting the new. The grandiose, big-business Hollywood Bowl is never new. But then, it all depends upon how you define "new." The festival weekend in June features old and new, the newest being the world premiere of Hungarian composer Peter Eotvos' "Sonata per Sei," a revised version for chamber forces of the Piano Concerto he wrote for French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard two years ago.

The Ojai Music Festival has announced that Tom Morris, executive director of the Cleveland Orchestra, will succeed Ernest Fleischmann as artistic director beginning with the June 2004 festival. In his 15 years in Cleveland, Morris has maintained that ensemble's prominence as the orchestra generally considered America's finest.

This year's Ojai Music Festival will be the last under the artistic direction of Ernest Fleischmann. After just five years in the post, Fleischmann, managing director of the L.A. Philharmonic for nearly 30 years, turns over Ojai to Cleveland Orchestra executive director Thomas Morris. "It really needs fresh ideas, fresh minds; I don't think anybody should stay longer than five years on a festival like that," Fleischmann says. But the 78-year-old Fleischmann still isn't retiring.

The Ojai Music Festival begins Wednesday and ends next Sunday, with concerts, art exhibits (contemporary Finnish glass and ceramics) and other events. (805) 646-2053. Wednesday, 5:30 p.m., Ojai Art Center The Toimii Ensemble presents works by Oliver Knussen (world premiere), Lindberg and Schwitters. Friday, 8 p.m. The Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Salonen, with Laura Claycomb (soprano) and Anssi Kartunnen (cello), presents works by Salonen (U.S.

The 57th Ojai Music Festival will be held May 28 to June 1 with Pierre Boulez conducting two concerts by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, festival artistic director Ernest Fleischmann announced Tuesday. On May 31, Boulez will conduct a program of his own music with the CalArts New Century Players and guest artists Mitsuko Uchida, Martin Chalifour and Lorin Levee. The 2003 festival is the last under the artistic direction of Fleischmann, who served in the post for five years.

The Ojai Music Festival and three theater groups have been allocated a total of $1,750 by the Ojai City Council. Based on recommendations from the city's Arts Advisory Committee, the council allocated the money Tuesday to four of the six groups that applied for city funds. The council awarded only one group, Illusions Theatre, the full $600 that it requested. Four actors and two musicians will perform segments of the group's popular "Chumash Legends" production in six Ojai-area schools.

Martin Bernheimer's review of Stravinsky's "Histoire du Soldat" at the Ojai Music Festival proves Peter Sellars' point that those who take themselves too seriously often miss the very art that is addressed to them ("Peter Sellars' 'Soldier': New Tale in Ojai," June 1). Bernheimer's observation that the work was executed in the silly, dull and amateurish fashion of high school gangbangers only reveals his own discomfort with the disturbing contrast between Sellars' work and the rest of the festival, which Bernheimer describes as a blissful, overstuffed Mecca for the stubbornly sophisticated, enlightened many.