MUST Staff
Our small, friendly office delivers services to schools, parents and caregivers, educators, supporters and the general public, ensuring that our programs are accessible and equitable, and that our Teaching Artists and partner schools feel supported in delivering excellent music and arts education to their students.
Meg Madden
Meg Madden is a nationally recognized arts educator who has pioneered award-winning programs for organizations as varied as American Indian Contemporary Arts, San Francisco Ballet, and Stern Grove Festival. She has developed music and arts plans for 10 Bay Area Districts and over 100 schools.
She serves on the Board of Music in Schools Today, on the national HeadStarter Network dedicated to accelerating innovation in early childhood, and as a Guardian of their work in AI. She served as chair of the State/Local Advisory Task Force to the San Francisco Arts Commission, which developed an arts policy plan and economic impact study of the arts for the city. She served as Chair of the Yerba Buena Gardens Planning Committee and as President of Friends of The San Francisco Arts Commission. She has received numerous awards from State and local government as well as the Yale Music Distinguished Educator Award.
In her college days, Meg played ukelele with a girls’ band. She spends her spare time with her Morgan mare Indi. She practices intuitive communication with animals. Meg loves to garden, is learning hand drumming, and cooks a mean blackberry tart.
You can learn more about Meg in her Q+A!
Executive Director
Wendy Choure, MPH
Interim Program Manager
Wendy has extensive experience managing complex programs across various disciplines. While working at the University of Illinois at Chicago, she oversaw multiple health research studies aimed at improving community engagement in historically marginalized communities. She also developed best practices for creating and maintaining diverse community advisory boards to ensure all communities are part of the conversation. Wendy has also worked at the American Academy of Pediatrics where she managed their National Conference Abstract Program. This required her to work with hundreds of doctors and medical students across 55 subspecialties for the submission and review of their abstracts.
Wendy now uses her programs development and relationship building skills to work with schools to implement music and arts programming across the Bay area. Her passion for building health equity includes bringing music and arts into the lives of every student.
In addition, she also serves on the Board of Music in Schools Today and is the working chair for the Stars on Staff Gala.
Dora Vandekamp
Interim General Manager
Dora Vandekamp brings a diverse skill set and a proven track record in leadership, communications, and corporate growth. With extensive management experience in both the health and corporate sectors, Dora demonstrates profound proficiency in administration, fostering team collaboration, and driving success within a positive work environment.
Her role as a Social Media Manager at a leading publishing company further refined her expertise in branding, crafting compelling social media content, and establishing a powerful brand presence. At MUST, Dora utilizes her communications acumen to optimize work systems, enhance collaboration, improve efficiency, and elevate the MUST brand's outreach to a wider audience.
Lisa Edsall Giglio
Learning and Teaching Consultant
Lisa thrives on working with schools, universities, and arts organizations. Lisa's 30 + years in arts education incorporate her roles as educator and arts integration specialist (ILSP of ACOE), and consultant.
She remains entrenched in arts education through these roles and works as an adjunct professor/instructor and field supervisor in Teacher Ed. and Theatre at Bay Area Colleges and Universities.
Lisa was a master teaching artist with the SF Opera Education Department, is an award winning stage director here and abroad, and was an arts education administrator with SF Opera and SF Symphony Education Depts. Lisa tied all those roles and more together as the Director of Education for the Tony Award-winning theatre company TheatreWorks Silicon Valley.
Having worked, lived, and studied abroad enhances Lisa's skills in delivering professional development focusing on the Arts as Essential for Engaging Content steeped in SEL, and centering DEI and Belonging.
Ruth Mankin
Arts Education Consultant
Ruth Mankin is an Arts Education Consultant. She has a MA in Education w/Specialist in Child Development, and a Multiple Subject Teaching Credential. Ruth has been the Education Director at many large arts education and performing arts centers around the Bay Area including Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, Montalvo Arts Center, SF Ethnic Dance Festival, Young Audiences, San Francisco Circus Center, and was the Fine Arts Coordinator for the Oak Grove USD. Ruth produced a multicultural performance show for students and teachers called People LIke Me with the SF Ethnic Dance Festival, which was seen by over 10,000 students and teachers in the Bay Area, and was the Manager at the Youth Arts Festival with the San Francisco USD. Ruth has built a roster of over 25 visual and performing artists and assembly artists and has worked with schools all around the Bay Area, developing high quality arts education programs for schools, afterschool programs and summer camps.
Before her career in arts education she worked in the field of Child Development and started the child care center at Sonoma State University for parents with children 6months - 5yrs old. She taught Child Development and Parent Education classes at SSU. Ruth then continued her work in the field of Child Care and Child Development, and with the company, Bright Horizons, and started the first onsite Child Care Center at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles. The CCC was for parents working in production, film/TV and management at Paramount. She then went on to develop onsite child care centers at Sony, Warner Bros, Universal, Dept of Water & Power, IBM, Xerox and other corporate businesses.
Ruth sings in the Oakland Interfaith Community Choir and the Freight & Salvage Choir. She loves the arts -music, dance, theater, circus and visual arts. Ruth teaches yoga and loves to swim.