Another Reason To Miss the Coast

The rain is coming down, and though I take some comfort in the song that keeps playing in my head (Fred Astaire signing "Isn't it a lovely day/To be caught in the rain," which if memory serves was the climactic tune of Tracy Young's brilliant Dreamplay), I just found another reason to miss the West Coast: Mark Swed's lovely tribute to the Ojai Festival. I only went three times, but I won't soon forget the performance of "L'Enfant et Les Sortileges" I saw there, or Dawn Upshaw singing Harbison's "Mirabai Songs," or the way the light broke the clouds at precisely the crescendo point of the slow moment in Ravel's Piano Concerto, or simply the sight of a living composer (John Adams) taking out his wallet and paying for his family's breakfast.