As the Ojai Music Festival community anticipates the upcoming 80th Festival with Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, incoming Artistic and Executive Director Teddy Abrams announces Chris Thile as Music Director for the 81st Festival, June 10-13, 2027. Since the late 1940s, the Ojai Music Festival’s tradition has been to select a new Music Director each year to ensure vitality and diversity in programming across Festivals. GRAMMY Award-winning mandolinist, singer, songwriter, composer, and MacArthur Fellow Chris Thile will make his first Ojai appearance with the 2027 Festival.
The 2027 Festival will include the world premiere of an Ojai-commissioned solo mandolin suite by Andrew Norman. Norman’s work will be performed at the upcoming 2026 Festival and was featured during the 2014 Festival with Music Director Jeremy Denk. In their first collaborations with Ojai, Cécile McLorin Salvant and Sullivan Fortner are working with Chris Thile to develop a new version of Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, which will receive its world premiere at the 2027 Festival. Caroline Shaw, whose work was featured during four prior Festivals with music directors Peter Sellars (2016), John Adams (2021), AMOC* (2022), and Rhiannon Giddens (2023), will be in residence as composer and performer. Featured as bassist and composer will be Edgar Meyer in his first collaboration with the Festival. The collective East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO) will be the resident ensemble, making its first Ojai appearance.
Additional collaborators and programming highlights of the 2027 Festival will be shared in the fall of 2026.
“The Ojai Music Festival has an unsurpassed history selecting visionary artists and offering them a platform to explore their creative dreams. Each Festival is a major moment in the annual schedule of global musical events, recognized around the world as a statement about what is possible and what may come to pass in music,” said incoming Artistic and Executive Director Teddy Abrams. “Ojai programs are surprising, revelatory, and affirming of the creative vitality of today’s most talented and searching artists. The 2027 Festival offers this exceptional platform to one of the 2 greatest musical minds I know: Chris Thile is transcendent in the broadest sense, defying genre and reframing the mandolin itself. I’ve described him as a modern Mozart, with boundless energy, limitless improvisational fluency, immense curiosity, and genuine positivity. Chris has had a longtime fascination with classical music, especially contemporary composers, and it seems that this opportunity to let his imagination run wild at Ojai was simply waiting to happen. Chris and I feel that the 2027 Festival should be a historic marker for the mandolin redefining how the instrument can be utilized by composers of our day. In pursuit of this goal, Ojai is commissioning a number of extraordinary composers to develop new repertoire for the instrument, and we’ll look forward to sharing more details in the fall.”
“One of Chris’ greatest strengths is his ability to perform natively in many genres. This aligns with my own vision of musical fluidity and plurality, where brilliant artists aren’t tethered by stylistic distinction, ” added Abrams. “It seems completely natural that an artist of Chris Thile’s depth and passion would present music ranging from Andrew Norman to jazz, bluegrass, and Bach at Ojai. Festival audiences can expect a very dynamic program in 2027, where repertoire from the past will sound new, and brand-new work may become core repertoire in the future. Chris’ virtuosity and uncontainable enthusiasm for music-making, together with his deep artistic kinship with Festival collaborators and the chemistry ignited by Ojai's remarkable audiences will be inspiring and memorable. I am honored to collaborate with Chris, the outstanding Festival Board, and our exceptional staff as I begin my tenure with the Festival.”
Teddy Abrams steps into the role of the Festival’s Artistic and Executive Director on September 1, 2026. He will join the ranks of such distinguished predecessors as Lawrence Morton, Ernest Fleischmann, Thomas W. Morris, and Ara Guzelimian, who concludes his tenure with the 2026 Festival, after having shaped Ojai's artistic direction for 12 years throughout the Festival’s history.