Chris Thile is the Music Director for the 81st Ojai Music Festival, to be held June 10–13, 2027, the Festival’s Artistic and Executive Director Designate Teddy Abrams announced today. Thile—the GRAMMY Award–winning mandolinist, singer, songwriter, composer, and MacArthur Fellow—will be making his first Ojai Festival appearance, which will also signal the beginning of Abram's tenure.

In their first collaborations with the Festival, Cécile McLorin Salvant and Sullivan Fortner are working with Chris Thile to develop a new version of Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, which will receive its world premiere at the 2027 Festival. Caroline Shaw, whose work was featured during four prior Festivals with music directors Peter Sellars (2016), John Adams (2021), AMOC* (2022), and Rhiannon Giddens (2023), will be in residence as composer and performer. Featured as bassist and composer will be Edgar Meyer in his first collaboration with the Festival. Additional collaborators and programming highlights will be shared in the fall of 2026.

"The Ojai Music Festival has an unsurpassed history selecting visionary artists and offering them a platform to explore their creative dreams," says Abrams. "Each Festival is a major moment in the annual schedule of global musical events, recognized around the world as a statement about what is possible and what may come to pass in music. Ojai programs are surprising, revelatory, and affirming of the creative vitality of today’s most talented and searching artists. The 2027 Festival offers this exceptional platform to one of the greatest musical minds I know: Chris Thile is transcendent in the broadest sense, defying genre and reframing the mandolin itself."

“For adventurous musicians and concertgoers, the Ojai Festival is a kind of Atlantis," says Thile; "emerging annually to remind us that our wildest hopes and dreams of music that expands our world—and a world that expands our music— are not only possible, but waiting for us, one step ahead of summer, the sea, and anything we’ve heard before. I pinched myself all through the call where Teddy Abrams asked if I would consider being the music director for the 2027 edition. A mandate to share music and musicians who have challenged and changed my perception of what great music can be/do with a community of listeners who crave exactly that in a performance experience? YES, PLEASE."

The announcement comes two weeks before the eagerly awaited 80th anniversary 2026 Festival with Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, marking the final year of Ara Guzelimian’s leadership as Artistic and Executive Director. For more on the Festival, click here.