PHOTOS BY CINDY PITOU BURTON, MIKAEL JORGENSEN, AND ELIZABETH HERRING

On Ojai's neroli-scented East End, at the residence of Will Thomas and Chris Hacker, a gathering of art aficionados and sound explorers convened for a unique, interactive cultural event known as Sound+Walk. Held on Friday evening — and a rescheduled Sunday due to a spell of rain Saturday — this event offered an immersive experience of sound, art, and light, seamlessly integrated across the contours of the property's natural and built environment.

As guests arrived, they were warmly received by Ojai Music Festival (OMF) Managing Director Gina Gutierrez, Director of Development Ana Cho Wagner, and a bartender with a generous pour. The meticulously arranged grounds became a dynamic canvas where sound artists Shelley Burgon, Daniel Corral, Joel Fox, Mikael Jorgensen, P. Lyn Middleton, Stephanie Cheng Smith, and host Will Thomas exhibited their auditory masterpieces.

THE INSTALLATIONS

Joel Fox | How You Are Known to Worms
An amplified and mediated walking surface
Materials: Piezo transducers, electronics, amplifiers

Will Thomas
Rhythm Machines #1 (spinning seedlings)
Rhythm Machines #2 (drifting patterns)
Each motor unit spins at a slightly different speed creating evolving rhythmic patterns using natural sound sources. Materials: DC motors, stepper motor, wooden dowels, cardboard boxes and tubes, acrylic tubes, grass, gravel, sugar packers.

Daniel Corral | Sextet
Each box improvises its own part, using a palette of field recordings, a telephone sound, and audio snapshots. The Sextet is a musical circle constantly reinventing itself. Sextet is an evolution of my past work with music boxes, including a series of giant boxes with 100 tiny movements inside them.

P. Lyn Middleton | Rocks
Materials: Handmade stoneware sculptures; sizes vary.

Nearby, in a quiet corner by a cozy fireplace, the gentle rattles of P. Lyn Middleton's ceramic rocks invited a deep, immersive listening experience.

Captured and recorded in Will Thomas’ studio was a symphony of the rocks’ distinct sounds. Equipped with headphones, a nearby listening station next to a cozy fireplace allowed guests to engage with the deliberate, rhythmic compositions, ensuring the subtle nuances of the soundscape were appreciated amidst the ambient noise of the event.

Mikael Jorgensen | Peering
A 20-minute video installation in which a player’s choice of audio tracks determines the direction of the piece of music. The soft waddles and occasional madcap voice of a musician tunes in over a drumming thunder of rocks, celebrated in the garden center. The video component will be projected from onto a tree. The visual enhancement and clarification of the simple, calm background actions and textures that pulse and undid over the will transform the tree’s three rivers. It is to be experienced in progress and for the viewer to encounter it as an epistle of a more prolonged meditation.

Shelley Burgon | Opening Out, 2024
Materials: Piezo speakers, LEDs, speaker wire, and copper wire.

Opening Out is a site-specific, multi-channel sound and light hanging sculpture exploring the expansion perspective of the spiral.

Will Thomas | Cami in the Isolation Booth
Featuring Cami Fill
Materials: Video 1:30 min loop, absence of sound

Stephanie Cheng Smith | Life Cycles
Materials: Cicada apparati: Wood, vellum, alligator clips, zip ties, ribbon, bamboo skewers, DC motors, plumbing fixtures. Cicada drivers (one driver per brood): Arduino mega, custom-designed PCB (printed circuit board)

Life Cycles is an accelerated representation of the overlapping periodical life cycles of different "broods" of cicadas. Their dormant periods—when the cicadas are underground—range from 1 to 17 years. Once emerged, the cicadas will sing to find a mate, thus starting their next generation.

Each brood differs in the length of its dormant period, active period, song length and frequency, and strength, or loudness. Within the broods, each cicada also has individuality by varying, within the brood's constraints, the strength, length, and frequency of its song.

As the sunset began to cast its pink glow, the crowd was drawn to the patio for each evening's highlighted performance. On Friday, Director Ara Guzelimian introduced Alexi Kenney, a noted violinist and a featured 2024 Ojai Music Festival artist, who captivated the audience. On Sunday, Shelley Burgon enchanted with her harp, looping plucked sounds into ethereal harmonies into the evening air.

The event served as a prelude to "Shifting Ground," another innovative project featuring Alexi Kenney, which recently concluded at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in NYC. "Shifting Ground" promises to extend these explorations in a black box theater setting as an add-on event during the upcoming Ojai Music Festival in June, offering a more intimate yet equally compelling experience. Kenney curates this deeply personal program of music, old and new, with works ranging from rarely heard Baroque fantasies to recent compositions by Salina Fisher, Angélica Negrón, and Paul Wiancko, and culminating in Bach's towering Chaconne.

SHIFTING GROUND
June 7 and June 8, 3:30 pm
Greenberg Center, Ojai Valley School lower campus

Purchase tickets: 2024 Shifting Ground

The Sound+Walk event was emblematic of the vibrant community that the Ojai Music Festival fosters, a community that thrives on innovative expressions and collective experiences. As the night concluded and guests departed from Happy Lane, the resonant echoes of the experience promised to linger like the scent of orange blossom that followed us home.

COVER PHOTO BY CINDY PITOU BURTON