Deep Dive with Cava Menzies on Creative Attunement

Kelly Corrigan Wonders

Kelly Corrigan Show

Society & Culture

4.9 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2026

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

There's a game Cava Menzies plays with her students. She asks each of them to say a word — snowfall, nightmare, dragons — and then she translates it into music on the piano right in front of them. Every time, something magical happens in the room. In the tenth and final episode of our Wired to Create series, Cava — musician, educator, and founding faculty at Oakland School for the Arts — makes the case that music isn't a talent reserved for the few. It's a birthright we've somehow talked ourselves out of using. Please share this episode with anyone in your life who has decided music isn't for them. Check out Cava and her OSA students singing Purple Rain on stage with Coldplay's Chris Martin HERE. This episode was made possible by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation. To learn more, please visit: waltonfamilyfoundation.org. To connect with Kelly and get a list of her weekly takeaways, join Kelly's ⁠free Substack⁠. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Kelly Corrigan Wonders.
0:10.0	I'm Kelly Corrigan, and today I'm wondering what music does that nothing else can, especially for a young person trying to figure out who they are.
0:18.2	My guest is Kava Menzies, a musician, an educator, and a founding
0:22.8	faculty member at Oakland School for the Arts, which you may have heard of, because that is
0:27.8	a high school from which Zendaya and Kalani graduated. Kava comes from a long line of musicians.
0:35.0	Her father is the jazz trumpeter Eddie Henderson.
0:38.6	He was an early member of the Herbie Hancock sextet. And her mother is a classically trained
0:44.1	floutist. Kava has been teaching and mentoring young artists in Oakland for over 20 years
0:49.4	and has directed performances alongside Chris Martin, Dave Grohl, Davy Diggs, and former president
0:55.6	Barack Obama. She is also one of the most genuinely attuned people I know, and I was delighted
1:03.0	to sit down with her and talk about the role of music and creativity in education and in life.
1:09.3	Here's my conversation with Kava Menzies.
1:15.2	So Kava, you have taught me as much about the joy of making as anyone I have ever worked
1:23.2	with are collaborations. I've been so rich and so satisfying.
1:29.8	And so I just want to start by saying thank you.
1:33.4	Not only for saying, yes, of course, you would talk to me for the show,
1:37.9	but also for over a decade of super gratifying collaborations.
1:47.3	I agree completely. I mean, that could have come straight out my mouth as well. I love collaborating with you. You're one of the few people in my life where I don't
1:53.3	even have to know, I don't even know the details of today. But it's anytime you ask, it's a yes. It's an
1:59.6	automatic yes because I know what magic happens when we get in the same room.
2:04.7	And I really feel like you and I both come from the same value system when it comes to collaborating and creating.
2:10.7	And I just, I always love being with you in any capacity.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 22 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Kelly Corrigan Show, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Kelly Corrigan Show and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.