At the Ojai Festival, a Star Pianist Keeps the Focus on Young Artists

Mitsuko Uchida sat at the piano with her back to the audience.

It was an unusual look for a reigning pianist who can fill a concert hall, or sell a new album of 200-year-old sonatas, on the strength of just of her name and face. But over four evenings of performances at the Ojai Music Festival in California, that’s how Uchida played.

It was especially strange, given that she was the festival’s music director, an annual post given to an artist to organize programming and the roster of performers. Throughout the festival’s outdoor campus, her name was on T-shirts and signs, not to mention Vogue-thick program books handed out at each concert.

Then again, we’re talking about Ojai, where open-minded audiences take in music accompanied by nature and snack on freshly picked pixie tangerines. Uchida might have seemed like a headliner, but this festival is about sharing the wealth.

She invited friends and colleagues whom she has known for years, like the endlessly genial Brentano String Quartet. Most heavily featured, during the festival’s run from June 6 through 9, was the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with whom Uchida often tours in concerto programs that she leads from the piano.

The Mahler Chamber Orchestra played traditional concerts at Ojai and also showed up at a local bar as a Johnny Cash cover band,Credit…Adali Schell for The New York Times

Those tours, though, rarely showcase the shape-shifting resourcefulness the ensemble brought to Ojai. Its members played pop-up miniatures in Libbey Park, the festival’s center, and even at a local bar as a Johnny Cash cover band. Onstage, they took on traditional fare, like heavenly Mozart concertos with Uchida, but also more contemporary works by Missy Mazzoli and John Adams.