Before Thomas W. Morris became artistic director in 2004, the Southern California contemporary music event was respected but somewhat, as Zachary Woolfe puts it, “insular and Eurocentric … If high modernism could be cozy, this was it.” Morris opened Ojai up to the ever-more-lively American new music scene and brought in as visiting music directors (a new one each year) a range of starry, even hip artists such as Mark Morris, Eighth Blackbird, Vijay Iyer, and (this year) Barbara Hannigan. – The New York Times