Executive Director

Mary Lins is an arts education leader and nonprofit executive with more than two decades of senior leadership experience. She is committed to advancing Living Jazz’s legacy of cultivating performing artists, expanding access to music education, deepening community partnerships, and strengthening the Bay Area’s cultural ecosystem.

Previously, Mary was Executive Director of Berkeley Playhouse, where she led sustained fiscal health, expanded access, and deepened the organization’s impact as both a producing theater and musical theater arts education hub. A collaborative leader, she prioritizes building strong partnerships and fostering a healthy organizational culture grounded in clarity, trust, and shared purpose.

Mary trained in music and theater at Pennsylvania State University, Capital Area School for the Arts, and the Interlochen Center for the Arts. She holds a master’s degree in religion and the arts, reflecting her enduring interest in the intersection of creativity, meaning-making, and human connection.

A singer-songwriter for more than 35 years, her own artistic practice has instilled an immense respect for the creative process and a strongly held belief in the vital role performing arts play in both individual lives and communities.

Interim Executive Director

Helping good people do good work, Marcy Straw brings steady, experienced leadership and thoughtful guidance to arts organizations and individual artists during moments of transition and possibility. She is delighted to serve as Interim Executive Director of Living Jazz, providing experienced guidance and stability while honoring the creativity, collaboration, and responsiveness that are central to its mission—partnering closely and transparently with the board; supporting staff with care and continuity through change; and preparing the organization for the successful onboarding of a permanent Executive Director.

Marcy’s current clients include the Anna Deavere Smith Pipeline Project and Berkeley Symphony Orchestra; since 2016, she has served as Managing Director of Eugenie Chan Theater Projects, providing hands-on leadership in support of ambitious artistic work. Most recently, she served as Interim Executive Director of Music for Minors, and she has previously led the Klein String Competition, UC Student Association, Bay Area Leadership Foundation, Teatro ZinZanni, Midsummer Mozart Festival, and Cazadero Music Camp.

Earlier in her career, Marcy held marketing and producing roles with California Shakespeare Theater and ODC Dance, and managed a roster of touring and recording artists across classical, jazz, and rock genres—experience that shaped her collaborative, artist-centered approach to leadership. Prior to that, she held regional sales management roles outside the arts, which strengthened her practical, operations-minded approach to leadership.

The first in her family to graduate from college, Marcy earned an MBA mid-career; she calls both Berkeley and California’s Gold Country home. She is a proud enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She can be reached at marcy@livingjazz.org.

Camp Director

Proclaimed by long-time music scribe, David Becker (SF Examiner), as the San Francisco Bay area's #1 Jazz Guitarist, Multiple-Award winning guitarist Terrence Brewer is a first-call and in-demand bandleader, record producer, concert performer, studio musician, and one of the San Francisco Bay area’s foremost and sought after music educators.

Brewer, a voting member of the Grammys, has produced and released 11 nationally acclaimed albums on the record label Strong Brew Music he started in 2006. “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me”, Brewer’s 11th album, a duet album with Jazz/Blues vocalist Pamela Rose pays tribute to the iconic duet albums by Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass. Combined with being an in-demand record producer for himself and others, Brewer has lead his various groups in performing to sold-out crowds at the 62nd and 52nd Annual Monterey Jazz Festival, the world famous Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, Yoshi’s San Francisco, SFJAZZ, and countless other venues and festivals.

When Brewer is not touring regionally and nationally, he serves on the staff of Living Jazz as the Associate Camps Director, is on the faculty (and is the Jazz Studies Department Chair) for the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Stanford Jazz Workshop, San Francisco University High School, and is a lead teaching artist/presenter/performer for SFJAZZ. 

Education Director

Nick Obando is a Bay Area native, Bi-Racial Filipino-American, saxophonist, composer, facilitator and educator who believes music and the arts is an integral tool for social change. His path to music began finding his dads saxophone in the closet and loving how it looked, felt, and sounded.

He earned his BA in visual and performing arts with an emphasis on music from CSU San Marcos where he studied jazz and recording engineering. After college he taught music for 11 years in independent schools across the bay area with students ranging from kindergarten through eighth grade. He is a trained SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) facilitator and worked for a consulting company leading clients through cultural transformation holding the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Nick has studied Filipino music accompanying young dancers at ACPA (American Center of Philippine Arts) which is now Agos Youth Program under Kularts. 

He was the music director and composer for the Palau’an Bird Call, a contemporary Filipino dance piece performed at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as well as band leader for the “The Color Ensemble” performed at Eastside Arts Alliance. 

Nick is grateful to continue his journey at Living Jazz making a positive impact in his community connecting his passion for music, jazz, education, and social change.

Operations Director

Phil Katague joined Living Jazz as Operations Manager in late 2023 and brings a background and perspective from managing operations at several prominent local music venues to continue his work creating the space to uplift and empower the next generation of the Bay Area’s musicians, artists, and creators.

As a lifelong musician and East Bay resident, Phil found his passion for building community around music when he and his friends started putting on DIY backyard punk shows in his hometown of Walnut Creek, CA. Shortly after graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a BA in Sociology, Phil moved to Oakland and joined the inaugural cohort of The UC Theatre’s Concert Career Pathways Program (nonprofit) in Downtown Berkeley. He went on to become their Front of House Manager, overseeing the operations and budgets for around 300 different concerts across all genres and audiences, as well as managing daily administration of the venue. In 2021 Phil moved on to become the Venue Manager of Starline Social Club, a regular stop for a wide variety of national and international touring acts, as well as a space to showcase Oakland’s diverse art and music scene.

Phil is excited to continue his work of supporting a wide variety of music and arts, both local and beyond, with Living Jazz.

Artistic Director, Jazz Camp West

NYC-based drummer/composer/teacher Allison Miller engages her deep roots in improvisation as a vehicle to explore all music. Described by critics as a Modern Jazz Icon in the Making, Miller won Downbeat’s 67th Annual Critics Poll for “Rising Star Drummer” and JazzTimes’s 2019 Critics Poll for “Best Jazz Drummer.” Boom Tic Boom, Allison’s longtime band, won Jazz Journalists Association’s 2019 award for “Best Mid-Sized Ensemble.” Her composition, “Otis Was a Polar Bear”, is included on NPR’s list of The 200 Greatest Songs by 21st Century Women+. She is also the first recipient of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation’s Commissioning Grant. In January 2020 Miller along with her band, Boom Tic Boom, tap dancer-Claudia Rahardjanoto, and video designer- Todd Winkler premiered this new multimedia suite, In Our Veins, with a seven show tour sponsored by Jazz Touring Network and Mid Atlantic Arts. The project explores multimedia performance as a vital form of knowledge production through the poetic interpretation of historical events and their association with the geography, ecology and flow of specific rivers. Learn More about Allison at allisonmiller.com.