Board of Trustees

Dan Ashley

***Board Chairman***. Emmy Award-winning journalist and seasoned television news anchor and reporter with extensive experience in all aspects of the industry; including daily newscasts, documentaries and special events coverage. Professional with deep expertise in media relations who has covered significant stories across the country and around the world, including presidential campaigns, papal and royal visits, and major natural disasters. Expert communicator with wide experience at all levels of corporate and government leadership and a proven ability to build and maintain productive relationships with key stakeholders. Passionate philanthropist and community leader who consistently demonstrates compassion, expertise, and authenticity.

A message on the importance of music and music education from MUST Board Chair Dan Ashley.

Larry Batiste

Larry Batiste’s career in the entertainment industry spans over 40 years. He has worked with some of the most successful new, and legendary artists of all time. Batiste, best known for musical directing the GRAMMY Awards and the TEC Awards at NAMM, has a natural talent for understanding and working in all genres of music.
His recording career started with the group Bill Summers & Summers Heat in 1979. He co-wrote and produced four albums along with Claytoven Richardson and Bill Summers, including the group’s top ten hit singles, “Call It What You Want”, “Jam The Box”, and “At The Concert”. After a few years of recording and touring with Summer’s Heat, he went on to work with various multi-genre artists including Whitney Houston, Michael Bolton, The Dazz Band, Natalie Cole, Al Jarreau, Patti Austin, The Stylistics, Lenny Williams, Huey Lewis & The News, Ledisi, Mickey Thomas, Pete Townshend, Stevie Wonder, Lalah Hathaway, Young Jeezy, Keyshia Cole, Santana, Yolanda Adams, Trombone Shorty, and Hugh Masakela. As a vocalist, he’s lent his voice to The Magical World of Disney (theme song), NBA Warriors’ Basketball theme, California Raisins (“I Heard It Through The Grapevine”), Wendy’s Restaurants, Sims (Playstation), Leap Frog Education; and the films, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Stuart Little, Snow Dogs, Rent (contractor), and over 500 recordings and commercials.
Batiste was commissioned by the Oakland Symphony to compose and orchestrate two compositions for full orchestra and 200 voices, which premiered at Oakland’s Paramount Theater in 2013. He co-produced and arranged horns and strings on Charlie Wilson’s number one Billboard single, “You Are”, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for “R&B Song of The Year” in 2012, and was a performer and vocal arranger on Roberto Fonseca’s Grammy nominated project, “Yo” in 2013. Batiste has been the musical director for the theater productions of “Pajama Game”, “Moms” starring Whoopi Goldberg, and “Jukebox” starring Danny Glover. In addition, he was the vocal arranger for the NFL Commissioner’s Super Bowl 50 Gala. He recently co-wrote and produced 2x Grammy nominated recording artist, John Lee Hooker Jr’s new album, “Testify”, and is writing a book entitled “The Art & Business of Songwriting” for Oxford University Press due in the Spring of 2021.
“I want to make life better for youth and creators of music” says Batiste, who is very active in community service as a volunteer, educator, and youth mentor. Batiste’s volunteer work includes: Music In Schools Today (Board Member), Heart Of the Town (Producers of Oakland’s Art & Soul Festival-Board Member), West Coast Songwriters Association (Board Member), and The Arhoolie Foundation (Board Member). He is a former National Trustee, San Francisco Chapter President, current Board Member, and Lifetime Member of The Recording Academy (producers of The Grammy Awards).

Meg Madden

***Executive Director.*** Meg is a nationally recognized arts educator who has pioneered award-winning programs for arts 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 for eight years 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. She appears frequently in the media. In her college days, Meg played ukelele with a girls’ band. She spends her spare time with her Morgan mare Indi. Meg loves to garden and cooks a mean blackberry tart.

Dr. Sandra Calman

CEO and Founder of Safety Physician Associates, (SPA) Corporation

Secretary. Who would have known that the choices and luck made as a Kindergartner would have made such a profound effect across the rest of my life. In 1966 Grandma Taylor brought out her great great Uncle's cornet from the attic. The horn was over a hundred years old at that point. She offered to let the grandchild who could blow it the best to have the cornet. My sisters tried, but all you could hear was the escape of air. But the story is told that I belted out a big loud "Bleat" and the cornet came home with me. Over the years I played First Chair for many school productions, traveled the country with my school's symphonic orchestra, took up the baritone as a second instrument and played in the school's marching and jazz bands.

What we didn't know and appreciate then, but know so well now, is that early music education makes better students. This is especially true for Mathematics, Foreign language skills and problem solving. Not to mention graduation rates are 400% higher in student who participate in a music program and daily school attendance is twice as high over those who don't participate, but even our immune systems are better. For me, music gave me a diverse group of friends, offered me the opportunity to travel and be recognized for great achievement and instilled into me the great love of all kinds of music.

I went on to be the school's Valedictorian and eventually to Medical School and have had a phenomenal life of caring for others and giving back for all those extraordinary opportunities afforded to me as a child. I joined MuST in 2003 and can't imagine a world with no Music Education in our K-12 school program, but this could happen. With all the budget cuts and hollowing out of the existing Music programs, losing Music is a reality. We all must pitch in now in every way we can.

What do you have hiding in your attic? Get out those old instruments and MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Jacopo Lenzi

Interim Working Chair & Chair, Finance Committee. Jacopo is Chief Financial Officer of Growth, Digital, and Operations at Gap Inc. Jacopo grew up in Italy, which fostered in him a love of music and an appreciation for the role of the arts in developing thoughtful, curious, and socially engaged adults. While he himself is musically challenged (despite much time with a violin and later a piano), he has witnessed in his two kids the educational benefits of early access to quality music instruction, along with the simple joy they get from expressing themselves musically. Jacopo has a BA from Columbia University and a MBA from Stanford University, and he has worked in a variety of finance, strategy, and corporate development roles, most recently at eBay, Walmart, and Samsung.

Don Sanchez

Don Sanchez, former Anchor and Arts and Entertainment reporter for ABC 7 (KGO), shaved his signature mustache off for MUST’s Stars on Staff. Don is retired from broadcasting, but he is still serving as a member of the SAG-AFTRA national board and board member of Nor Cal/ San Francisco NATAS, (national academy of television arts and sciences) the Emmy organization.

After graduating from the University of Southern California in telecommunications, Don returned to the Central Coast to do radio and then was hired for his first TV job as a reporter at KSBY-TV in San Luis Obispo in 1963. Don’s only other TV job was at KGO-TV in San Francisco. He started there in September, 1972, and spent the next 40 years and three months as a reporter, sports reporter, news anchor, talk show host (“good morning bay area” in 1989) and finally the arts and entertainment reporter for the last 12 years. Don has won 5 EMMY® Awards, including the prestigious Governor’s award in 2013 and is a member of the NATAS Silver Circle and the Broadcast Legends.

Gregg Perloff

CEO of Another Planet Entertainment, Gregg is one of the top concert promoters in the country, dating back to his time booking concerts for the University of California’s Cal Performances series, to serving as CEO of Bill Graham Presents. A graduate of the College of Environmental Design’s Department of City & Regional Planning, he put his knowledge of the positive effects of arts and culture on cities to use as he restored the Bill Graham Auditorium and Greek Theater in San Francisco and Fox Theater Oakland and turned these California venues into economic engines for the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2003, Perloff launched Another Planet Entertainment in Berkeley. The company books hundreds concerts a year, from world-renowned groups like Radiohead to local independent bands, and is responsible for producing the wildly successful Outlands Music & Arts Festival in Golden Gate Park, which in its first four years contributed over $4.3 million to San Francisco’s Recreation & Parks Department. We promote events 52 weeks a year in venues from clubs to stadiums to multi-day festivals and everything in between. APE exclusively operates and promotes concerts at the Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley, San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and The Independent, the Fox Theater in Oakland, the Oxbow RiverStage in Napa, and Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harveys. Annual festivals include San Francisco’s Outside Lands in Golden Gate Park and Las Vegas’ Life is Beautiful.

Dr. Alan Schroeder

Dr. Schroeder is the Associate Chief for Research in the Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, and a clinical professor in the Division of Hospital Medicine and the Division of Critical Care. His research interests focus on identifying areas where we can “safely do less” in health care, and frequently lectures on this theme locally and nationally. Dr. Schroeder is currently involved in multiple projects involving common conditions and interventions in pediatrics such as head trauma, bronchiolitis, UTI, meningitis, febrile infant management, and third molar extractions. He is a co-chair of the Lown RightCare Alliance Pediatric Council, co-chair of the Academic Pediatric Association’s Healthcare Value Special Interest Group, an editor of the Yearbook of Pediatrics and an associate editor for the journal Hospital Pediatrics. Dr. Schroeder provides clinical care for children in the PICU and the pediatric ward.