June Fun in the Sun: A Few Wine, Beer, Art, Music Festivals in Ojai, Santa Barbara, LA

It can be very easy to overwhelm yourself with how much there is to do in the summer sun — and under the moon! — in Southern California! While the weather is great most of the year, once the June Gloom burns off, summers are full of outdoor music, wine, art and other festivals and concert series, many of them FREE!

For us in Ventura, it’s an hour or so more to drive south to get to various venues in LA and less than an hour to get to Santa Barbara.  And Ojai is even closer!

Tonight the world-famous 71st annual Ojai Music Festival commences under the oak trees in downtown Ojai’s Libbey Bowl. If classical or new music is what you crave, this is world class:

“For seven decades, the Ojai Music Festival has been a laboratory for the special chemistry that results from combining insatiable curiosity with unbounded creativity. The formula is simple: Each year a music director is given the freedom and resources to imagine four days of musical brainstorming. Some have approached their task with caution, fearing that Ojai might be like other places. But, of course, it’s not. More often this unique blend of enchanted setting and an audience voracious in its appetite for challenge and discovery has inspired a distinguished series of conductors, performers, composers to push at boundaries and stretch limits.”

This year’s Music Director composer-pianist is Vijay Iyer. A Grammy nominee, he was named DownBeat Magazine’s 2015 Artist of the Year and 2014 Pianist of the Year; he’s also a 2013 MacArthur Fellow and a 2012 Doris Duke Performing Artist. Check out the complete schedule here. 

Tickets are not cheap: single concert seats range from $150 for front rows to $20 for the grass near the back of the small venue. Or picnic outside — you can hear the music and the kids can run around and play. There are also several FREE events or enjoy event live streaming throughout the Festival with Ojai Live Online. Log on to OjaiFestival.org  Thursday, June 8 at 7:45pm for a multi-camera, live webcast of Festival concerts as well as interview segments.

While in Ojai, be sure to stop by The Ojai Vineyard tasting room, located on Montgomery an easy peaceful walk from Libbey Park or drop by Topa Mountain Winery up the street by the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa.

OR on Sunday June 11 from 11:30-4pm, head for the Ojai Wine Festival presented by Rotary Club of Ojai-West, now in its 31st year. There you can taste wine and beer and get your dance on beside Lake Casitas and surrounded by national forest!!

Read seven reasons why you should go to the Ojai Wine Festival as well as more about it here.

And for something completely different, this Saturday June 10 is ROSE WINE DAY, and in LA, there’s an artist who is painting residences PINK! This is a partnership between The Most Famous Artist and Nomadica Wine, for the new Pink River Rosé limited-edition series: “Matty Mo aka “The Most Famous Artist” is an LA based conceptual artist known for repurposing old paintings and murals. To celebrate his partnership with Nomadica, he will be painting a large residential property completely pink this weekend as TMFA was given a chance to make an ephemeral artwork out of a property slated for demolition later this month. When asked why TMFA chose the color pink for an artistic expression, TMFA simply responded, “Because pink is a nice color.”” 

Next weekend, over Father’s Day, there’s two great events to look forward to: Live Oak Music Festival and the LA Wine Festival. We’ll be heading to Live Oak as we have most Father’s Day weekends for the past five years because love camping out there, listening to all of the great live music, dancing and tasting wine and beer! Yes this is primarily a music festival with headliners like Ozomatli and a fundraiser for the San Luis Obispo public radio station, but there a wine tasting on Saturday and a beer tasting on Sunday. But if you’re just into wine and food, then the LA Wine Fest is for you.

Want to learn more about Central Coast wine and cuisine? Then the Santa Barbara Wine and Food Festival June 24 is for you! The location is the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, a truly lovely site under the oaks and along Mission Creek.  Read more about all three Festivals here.

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