Cava Menzies

Cava is a multidisciplinary musician, visual artist, and educator who resides in Oakland, Ca. She is a Bay Area native and hails from a long line of creators; her grandmother a pioneer in the New York Jazz scene as a dancer at the Cotton Club, her father, Eddie Henderson, an accomplished jazz trumpeter and early member of the Herbie Hancock sextet, and her mother a classically trained flautist and music enthusiast.    Cava holds a BA from the Berklee College of Music in Boston where she studied jazz piano and music education. She received her MM from the University of Miami where she studied composition and music production and recording.  

Cava is a founding music faculty member at the Oakland School for the Arts and served as the Artistic Director of the school from 2015 - 2018. Her musical directing and arranging work have been featured in performances with Chris Martin, Coldplay, Daveed Diggs, Rafa Casal, Dave Grohl, Kehlani, and Adrian Marcel. Through her cumulative work at OSA, Cava has led four concert tours to Italy, Puerto Rico, and New Orleans and has taught over 2000 young musicians from Oakland.

Cava is a 2014 National Artist Teaching Fellow. She has been a guest faculty member for Berklee College of Music’s weeklong music intensives in LA and Puerto Rico. She serves on the board of the SF Chapter of the Recording Academy and was a quarterfinalist for the 2018 Grammy Music Educator Awards.

Cava is the founder of the brand COLORQUEEN, a multidisciplinary platform that highlights her integrated visual art, music, and travel work.