FESTAC Festival – Celebrating Resiliency Through Music, Art & Culture

September 28, 2019 | 12pm – 10pm
old oakland | 9th & washington st.

The FESTAC Festival, a one-day live-art festival of music, art and culture, considered one of the nation’s most anticipated free outdoor live-work events on the west coast. The 1-day Festival will attract over 100 artists and more than 5,000 attendees from around the Bay Area. Visitors will enjoy a true “Live-Work” exhibition throughout the Old Oakland’s Cultural Corridor. The festival will include youth village activities for kids and artist workshops throughout the day.

Arts & Crafts Makers

Jules Henry

Trained as a mechanical engineer at Carnegie Mellon, Jules Henry began my professional journey with Toyota of North America. After two years of improving transmission assembly and robotic welding processes, he felt strongly called to realign with his passion for design. From that insight, he enrolled in the Industrial Design Engineering department at the Royal College of Art in London.

Arthur Monroe

Abstract Expressionism was the prevailing American art style in the 1950s and was generally recognized as being the most important modernist art to have occurred after World War II. As a young artist, Arthur Monroe immersed himself in the exciting milieu of the East Village. He had a studio facing that of Willem De Kooning’s, and he hung around the Cedar Street Bar, where he knew some of the most acclaimed Abstract Expressionists, including Franz Klein. Irene H Feiks Irene Hernandez-Feiks founded Chillin’ Productions in 1998, with the purpose of discovering and aiding Bay Area fashion designers, painters, photographers, filmmakers, DJ’s, musicians and performers.

Kaya Fortune

I examine the artistic and cultural roots of the African Diaspora, and its influence on cultures around the world. The work celebrates African American culture through exploration of blues and jazz music, and political and social movements. In my assemblage sculptures, I revive the voices of found materials to create new interpretations of African American experience. My work celebrates African American artists and musicians whose creative ideas have guided us towards self-determination and liberation.

Andrea McCoy Harvey

Andrea McCoy Harvey is a native of Little Rock, Arkansas. Andrea received her formal art training at the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff with a Bachelor’s Degree in Art Education. She is currently obtaining a Masters Degree in Fine Arts at the Academy of Art San Francisco. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. and a public school Art Teacher for Emery Unified School District.

Andrea has recently opened her own art studio in Emeryville that will allow children and adults to create, explore and enjoy their interest for the visual arts.

James Gayles

Fine artist (painting & mixed media), illustrator, graphic designer, musician, husband and father. “A lot of times when I am making artistic or creative decisions I go by feeling rather than intellectual reasoning. I emphasize the shapes, the tones and the lighting. By doing that I am able to bring out the personality of the person, it makes the painting more emotional.”

Maria Garcia Pacheco

A West Oakland Native, Maria began selling her custom clothing, paintings and prints during
Oakland’s First Friday in 2013. She is now a resident artist at Era Art Bar in Downtown Oakland, has been commissioned to paint her first 2 murals inside of Oakland business’s, had her first solo art show this past March, and has been curating the Oakland Artist Collective Gallery since May. OAC is a gallery located in Jack London Square supporting local Bay Area artist only. Maria also host local wine vendors, along with special events celebrating the artist in her space.

Live Entertainment

Oakland Public Conservatory of Music

OPCMusic opens the world of music to all through access to quality instruction in a nurturing environment. We provide economical study in a variety of musical arts. We value rigor, innovation and scholarship in our quest to preserve the musical traditions of Oakland Oaktown Jazz Workshop The Oaktown Jazz Workshops’ Performance Ensemble features young musicians ages 12-18 performing a variety of exciting and challenging jazz classics. The nonprofit’s year-round after school program passes on the language and traditions of jazz from professional master musicians to the next generation.

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.

RustaFunk/Jazz Mafia

A creative force on the Bay Area music scene for more than a 16 years, the loose-knit band of jazz cats, MCs, arrangers and composers known collectively as The Jazz Mafia, has emerged as the most prolific musical organization on the West Coast- and they are all on stage at once here in the Jazz Mafia Symphony.

Calle Ocho

Calle Ocho is a charanga ensemble specializing in Cuban son, danzon and jazz for your dancing and listening pleasure. Our members have played with John Santos and the Machete Ensemble, Orquesta La Moderna Tradicion, Orquesta La Pena, and Bahia Son. Rita Hargrave, timbales; Suzanne Schrift, bass; Ismael Rodriguez, congas; Annette Oropeza, lead vocals; Ahni Robinson, flute; Sara Herrera, violin; Kit Robinson, tres guitar.

Piwai Wekuharare

Piwai has masterfully created her own hypnotic sound that layers rabi (vocal based rhythms), jazz, blues, traditional folk and reggae on top of the traditional sacred sounds of the 3,000 year old mbira instrument. Her songs capture the delicate aspects of life and explore the wide realm of the human condition.

Jacques Ibula

Ibula Mwana Katakanga Jr., better known by his stage name of “Jacques Ibula ”, is a Congolese singer-songwriter, painter, and activist. His unique, captivating voice has a refreshing artistic quality atypical to mainstream depictions of Congolese music. Born and raised in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and from an ancestral lineage of Lunda, Jacques emigrated to California in 1997 in pursuit of a higher education.

Alphabet Soup

ince 1991, Alphabet Soup has been a Bay Area cultural and musical institution. Showcasing virtuoso musicianship, integrated with social conscious lyricism, the artistic synergy between the wordsmiths and players creates a musical landscape unto its own. Injecting Soul, Funk, Hip Hop, Spoken Word, and Jazz, this incarnation features Eric “EQ” Young on bass (Con Funk Shun), Alcide Marshall on drums, Andre Marshall on
guitar/keys/vocals, Dave Ellis on saxophone (Rat Dog, SF Jazz) Mic Blake on vocals and CB on vocals (Luv Phenomena).

Jonah Melvon & Adesha

Jonah Melvon and Adesha are R&B/conscious hip hop artists and siblings, where home is Oakland. Soul is what they embody in every genre of life. Now touring on their new album “RainWater Project”, they bring words of empowerment, equity, healing, and love to audiences worldwide. They have performed with Miguel, Goapele, Ledisi, EPMD, and Black Eyed Peas, to name a few.

Other highlights include some of the hottest bay area DJ’s and a Culinary Green Zone hosted by Oakland’s Indigenous House and PadreMu of the cannabis industry; Participating in this event provides a unique opportunity to develop new business leads, revisit existing customers, strengthen client relationships, brand your company name, and generate awareness of your cannabis business. There are strict rules and regulations and the event will not allow any sales or consumption of any cannabis products until the Oakland laws and regulations have been approved.

Festac Oakland 2019 takes place in old Oakland Saturday, September 28th from 12noon to 10 p.m., centered in and around downtown Oakland. This is a free cultural arts festival including a food and wine pairing with tickets available online for just $40 Adults advance purchase only.

Festac Oakland 2019 is Northern California’s most anticipated cultural arts festival with direct service via both BART’s 12th Street City Center station and AC Transit, in addition parking is available at Douglas Parking lot on 10th & Broadway Street and 8th & Clay Street.

Festac Oakland 2019 is produced by Alistair Monroe of The Oakland Cannery Collective in association with the City of Oakland’s Cultural Arts Community. For tickets and information, including the 2019 lineup, visit www.FestacOakland.com or email [email protected]

Alistair Monroe

As an inner-city, community-based music producer and festival promoter, founder of the North Beach Jazz Festival San Francisco, Alistair works to enrich and beautify urban environments to educate the public about the process and history through humanitarian and education platforms. Working with a wide variety of neighborhoods and communities, Alistair has inherited the creative process through neighborhood arts organizations.