Cava Menzies 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. 

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 (OSA) and has taught music there for the past 22 years. She served as the Artistic Director of the school from 2015 - 2018 and Creative Director from 2024 - current.  In 2013, Cava created OSA’s Step It Up program, whose mission is to provide free arts training to elementary and middle school students in Title 1 schools in Oakland.  Through her work at OSA, she has mentored many of Oakland’s notable artists as they were beginning their music careers: Kehlani, Adrian Marcel, Jane Handcock, JWalt, Tatianna Cordoba, Kent Overshown, Sasha Berliner, and many more. Cava’s musical directing and arranging work have been featured in performances with Chris Martin, Coldplay, Daveed Diggs, Rafa Casal, Dave Grohl, Kehlani, Ryan Tedder, Goapele, Adrian Marcel, and former President Barack Obama.  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 served on the board of the SF Chapter for the Recording Academy from 2018 - 2020 and was a quarterfinalist for the 2018 Grammy Music Educator Awards.  In 2022, Cava received a Congressional Recognition award from former Congresswoman Barbara Lee for her commitment to the education and welfare of Oakland’s aspiring young artists. In 2025, Cava was commissioned by the Oakland Symphony Orchestra to create an original work for both orchestra and chorus.  Her piece, entitled  “Suite for Humanity”, will premiere at the Paramount Theater Oakland on November 14th, 2025. 

Cava is the director and founder of CO-LLAB Choir, an Oakland-based contemporary vocal ensemble for adults that works with vocal artists and singer songwriters to bring their music to life in a vocal ensemble setting. The ensemble co-arranges and co-writes music together as well as collaborates with professional artists on studio recordings and performances.