Ojai Pops Concert Series – Free community concert

The Ojai Pops Concert Series will present the TWO FREE Community Concerts this Sunday, October 6, 2024, at Libbey Bowl.  A DOUBLE HEADER 1:30 & 3:30 pm!

​The Ojai Pops Concert Series is sponsored by the City of Ojai and by Music 4 Kids, a California 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose goal is to provide low-cost music lessons, instruments, and free concerts.  Donations are greatly appreciated.  All donations will go to the Larry Weiss Scholarship Fund and will be given to students in need of private music lessons.

The 1:30 concert will feature the VENTVM Qvintet.  The quintet emerged in Los Angeles in 2019 as an ensemble dedicated to performing and expanding the canon of the woodwind quintet repertoire. Its members are Los Angeles based musicians who have the desire to engage with communities and audiences through their compassionate attention to artistic detail. VENTVM’s programs are tastefully selected with a mind for diversity and poignancy, including detailed notes to engage listeners. Dialogue and introduction will be the key to ensuring that classical music has a future in our community. Their inaugural concert on the 31st of August 2019 was rapturously received and points to a successful future on the stage.

VENTVM believes fervently in the immortal persistence of the performing arts. VENTVM Qvintet’s reverence for chamber music is founded on two principles, democracy and communication. Artistic choices that might otherwise be dictated by a hapless conductor (noteworthy in their absence here) are reached by mutual agreement among members of a chamber ensemble. The unified expression is achieved only when players can agree stylistically and rehearse their ideas openly.

Chamber musicians must therefore rely on perception and awareness that borders on the extrasensory. What might a certain gesture signify from that flutist just yonder? How can I pace my crescendo with the clarinetist sitting next to me? An audience watches these choices being made in real-time, often in a smaller venue and with a better look at the inner workings of the musical mechanism. Just as a chamber musician must assert their own understanding of music, the audience is mysteriously drawn into participation.

Indeed, what about a string quartet (or even a woodwind quintet?) can so move an audience, can bring them into the very heart of a piece of music? Neither science nor philosophy have provided a suitable answer.

Thanks to the ambitions of woodwind players and composers alike, the 20th century became a golden age for the woodwind quintet. Eminent names such as Paul Hindemith, Carl Nielsen, Jean Francaix, Samuel Barber, György Ligeti and Paquito D’Rivera have ensured that woodwind quintets enjoy long tenure on the concert stage. Many of these works can be expected in VENTVM Quintet’s future performances.

VENTVM QVINET BIOS

 Ernesto Cruz is a native Angelino who graduated from California State University, Northridge (CSUN) with a bachelor’s in music in Clarinet Performance and earned his Master in Fine Arts degree in Clarinet Performance from the California Institute of the Arts.

He is an active freelance musician and private instructor teaching in the southern California area. He has taught in the Hart School District and currently has a private studio. Ernesto has performed with the Landmark Opera, Channel Islands Chamber Orchestra, LLS Symphony Orchestra, and other ensembles in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties.

Alexander Charles Burns-Chay is a professional bassoonist based in Los Angeles and Orange County. He performs regularly with the Vicente Chamber Orchestra, Bakersfield Symphony, and Los Angeles Sinfonietta. He is the principal bassoon with the Dana Point Symphony Orchestra as well as the Los Angeles-based Opera Italia. He maintains a private bassoon studio and gives masterclasses throughout the southwestern United States.

Originally from Tustin, CA, Mr.  Burns-Chay attended the Orange County School of the Arts and completed his undergraduate studies at UCLA with degrees in bassoon performance and German. His diverse interests and academic success lead to his election to Phi Beta Kappa.

Puerto Rican Flutist Juan Antonio Rivera has appeared with numerous organizations such as Ballet Austin, Waco Symphony Orchestra,  Waco Lyric Opera, Opera San Luis Obispo Grand Orchestra, State Street Ballet, Temple Civic Chorus, Las Cruces Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de la Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, Opera de la Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad  Juarez in Mexico, Valley Symphony Orchestra, Celestial Opera Orchestra, Opera by the Glass Orchestra, Hawkmore Lyric Opera Orchestra, Oasis Chamber Music and Opera Productions. As a soloist, Mr. Rivera has performed Vivaldi’s  Piccolo Concerto with the Valley Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Symphonic Winds. In 2017, Mr. Rivera performed Cecile Chaminade’s Concertino for flute in the Ojai Libbey Bowl. Most recently, he has performed Mozart’s Flute Concerto in G with the Ojai Pops Orchestra and the Los Angeles Symphonic Winds. Currently, Mr. Rivera is playing Principal Flute with the Los Angeles Symphonic Winds, Ojai Pops Orchestra, Genesis Opera Theater Orchestra, and Symphony of the Vines. Mr. Rivera received a Bachelor of Music in flute performance from the Baylor University School of Music and a Master of Fine Art in flute performance from The California Institute of the Arts Herb Alpert School of Music.

Jason Beaumont is a freelance French Horn player with a degree in Horn Performance from Missouri State University, where he won the concerto competition and performed the Villanelle by Dukas. He is a regular member of the Santa Monica Symphony, the San Fernando Valley Symphony, and the principal horn of the Los Angeles Symphonic Winds and Symphony of the Vines. Jason has performed with Chicago Symphony Tubist Gene Pokorny and former principal trumpet Chris Martin. He recently has performed selections from Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio under the baton of Oscar-winning composer, Alexandre Desplat.  He records horn in his home recording studio for soundtracks and music collaborations.  When he’s not performing and recording, he’s a filmmaker and camera operator in the Los Angeles area.

Bom An is an active freelance oboist and English horn player based in Los Angeles. She studied with Allan Vogel at the California Institute of the Arts, where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Oboe Performance. Her primary teachers include Allan Vogel, Paul Sherman and Hag young Kim.

She has won the First Prize from The Music Association of Korea Competition and has performed with Hungary Debrecen Philharmonic Orchestra and Gwacheon Philharmonic Orchestra as a soloist.

She is currently the principal oboe of San Fernando Valley Symphony orchestra, Los Angeles Symphonic Winds, Symphony of the Vines, and the section oboe of San Luis Obispo Symphony.

The 3:30 concert will feature 805 Brass.   This exciting and versatile instrumental group is a brass quintet with a twist: they have two trumpets, a trombone, and tuba.  Instead of French Horn in a traditional brass quintet they have a saxophone.   This maybe the only group in the United States with this exact instrumentation and certainly the only group in Ojai.  The group will be joined by 14 year old Ojai resident Milo Miller on saxophone.

The program will feature the standard brass quintet music a la the Canadian Brass, such as Summertime by George Gerswhin, Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Tuxedo Junction intertwined with some classical music, tango, ragtime, and 20th Century compositions.

805 Brass is the third iteration of brass quintets started by Scott Weiss about 30 years ago. The musicians are Jim Labertew and Scott Weiss on trumpets, Brandon Boyd on saxophone, Taylor Duchai on tuba, and David Marx on Trombone. All the musicians have studied music at the university level.

Brandon is an Ojai native. If you live in Ojai, you may have heard Brandon playing on the weekends behind the arcade or at farmer’s market.  Jim studied music at Cal State Northridge and Scott studied at UCSB and University of Guelph in Canada.  Jim Labertew spent many years playing professionally in shows, cruise ships, and recording.  Each musician has decades of experience and perform in many musical groups in Ventura & Santa Barbara Counties.

The musicians are donating their time to raise money for Music 4 Kids.

Upcoming concerts in this free concert series will the Ojai Pops Orchestra on October 20th, and the Tuxedo Junction Jazz Band on November 3rd2024.

Please refer to the website: www.ojaipops.com for additional information.

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