OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL TO OFFER REVAMPED PROGRAM.

Byline: P. Catherine Shanks Community Columnis

Music lovers heading up the mountain for the 52nd annual Ojai Music Festival will be treated to a revamped, revised and refreshed version of the long-running classical music event.

Newly installed artistic director Ernest Fleischmann and the first woman director in the history of the event, pianist Mitsuko Uchida, have built a series of concerts sure to please.

Fleischmann brings to his new job a sense of responsibility for all that the festival represents.

``I follow a couple of remarkable artistic directors,'' said Fleischmann, particularly praising his immediate predecessor, Ara Guzelimian. ``My challenge is to live up to what Ojai stands for - to perform music that is partly unfamiliar.''

The three-day festival will begin Friday evening and will feature seven individual performances, up from six last year.

Fleischmann, who recently retired from his position as managing director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, said he is finding his new affiliation with the festival and his collaboration with Uchida quite pleasing.

``Even when Mitsuko Uchida is not performing, you're in the presence of a very special human being,'' Fleischmann said. ``She is an intoxicating spirit of a person.''

The festival program will include the likely musical suspects: Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. Fleischmann notes that though the names are familiar, the music might not be.

``When last have you heard the Schubert for two pianos?'' he said, referring to the ``Schubertiade'' concert to be performed by Uchida and Ignat Solzhenitsyn. Conductor and pianist Solzhenitsyn is the son of Nobel Prize-winning poet Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Other unusual offerings to be heard throughout the expanded series of concerts will include Beethoven's 32 variations in C minor and his Bagatelles, Op. 126. The works will be performed by Uchida in concert with the Brentano String Quartet.

``The music is seemingly on the conservative side, until you dig in a little bit,'' said Jacqueline Sanders, the festival's executive director. ``It's sort of a Viennese-Modernistic approach - with a little Beethoven thrown in.

A concert version of the songs of Leonard Bernstein is a novelty this year. The hit songs from ``Wonderful Town,'' ``On the Town,'' ``West Side Story,'' ``La Bonne Cuisine'' and ``Trouble in Tahiti'' generally are not performed outside the original context. Mezzo-soprano Joyce Castle and baritone Kurt Ollmann will sing ``A Bernstein Cabaret'' in celebration of the 80th anniversary of Bernstein's birth. The songfest will be followed by another festival first - a champagne reception.

The Saturday family concert in Libbey Bowl is called ``Totally Brass.'' True to the title, the program will be performed by 15 brass musicians playing early antiphonal tunes, a transcription of a Bach work originally intended for the organ, baroque and Renaissance dances, cowboy dances and Disney dances.

``We're even playing some battle music,'' said Jeffrey Reynolds. A trombonist in the ensemble and conductor of ``Totally Brass,'' Reynolds said he and the contingent of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra virtuosos will perform selections from the 1500s to more modern works. Children will enjoy a performance of ``Animal Ditties,'' narrated by Peter Strauss. Featuring the poetry of Ogden Nash, the Anthony Plog composition is sure to make the young ones smile.

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Music Director David Zinman will make a special guest appearance at the festival to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group and Ojai Festival alumna soprano Elissa Johnston in ``American Spectrum.''

The contemporary program will feature the music of Antheil, Kirchner, Harbison and Ives. Zinman also will conduct Uchida and members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a performance of music by Berg, Mozart, Webern and Beethoven. This program will include the infrequently preformed Three Pieces from Alban Berg's Lyric Suite Op. 6 and a sparkling rendition of Beethoven's ``Emperor'' piano concerto played by Uchida.

In yet another festival offering, violinist Mark Steinberg will join pianist Solzhenitsyn and the Brentano String Quartet for a performance of music by Prokofiev, Bartok and Shostakovich.

People who live near festival venues already are surveying the sites for prime viewing real estate.

``The people on Signal Street can't wait for the Bernstein Cabaret,'' Saunders said. ``They are already putting out lawn chairs,'' she said, adding ``These are all the earmarks of an Ojai Festival on the way.''

Individual event tickets range in price from $12 to $40. Exceptions are the ``Totally Brass'' concert, priced at $5 for adults, and $1 for children, and the Bernstein Cabaret concert at $40. Tickets for the cabaret concert and reception are $75. For information and to order tickets, call [phone]. For information about dining, lodging and events of interest in the Ojai area, call the Ojai Valley Chamber of Commerce at [phone].

Ojai Festival information and a complete program listing can be found on the Internet at http://www.west.net/ojaifest/.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

PHOTO Mitsuko Uchida

Pianist will perform Schubert