The Board of Directors of Angel City Arts, producer of the Angel City Jazz Festival, is pleased to announce the appointment of Rob Woodworth as ACA’s new interim director. With many years experience in non-profit management, jazz venue management, booking and public relations in the Bay Area, Rob is well qualified to direct Angel City Arts. Festival founder Rocco Somazzi remains artistic director of the Angel City Jazz Festival.
Recently relocated to Los Angeles, Rob Woodworth was founder and executive director of The Jazz House performance space in Berkeley, where he created a non-profit organization and music venue devoted to bringing jazz and other types of music to audiences of all ages. Some of the artists he has worked with include Sam Rivers, William Parker, Erik Friedlander, Susie Ibarra, Hamid Drake, Peter Brotzmann, Steven Bernstein, Ambrose Akinmusire, Sonny Simmons, and Ben Goldberg to name a few. Woodworth was also founder and organizer of The Zipper Festival, a festival of jazz and improvisational music in Berkeley. He founded and organized the Free-Jazz Fridays music series in Oakland, CA, and worked on the Berkeley Arts Festival. He has also been co-organizer of In the Flow Festival in Sacramento, has been civic arts commissioner of Pleasanton, CA, and former board member and president of the Pleasanton Cultural Arts Council. He is currently director of membership and outreach for California Lawyers for the Arts.
Woodworth’s new duties will include production, promotion and marketing for the Angel City Jazz Festival, fundraising, grant management, coordination of festival volunteers, and serving as liaison between The Jazz Bakery and Angel City Arts for co-production of the 2012 Angel City Jazz Festival. Angel City founder and artistic director Rocco Somazzi says, “I’m very pleased that Rob is now with ACA and I’m looking forward to work with him. I first heard about Rob when he was running the Jazz House in Berkeley. We share a boundless passion for good music and this opportunity to work together will allow us to share our passion with more and more people.”
The four year old Angel City Jazz Festival has become one of the West Coast’s premier showcases for jazz and contemporary improvised music. This year’s festival will take place October 5-14, with the theme, “Artists and Legends,” as innovative artists pay tribute to their legendary mentors. Concerts will take place at UCLA’s Royce Hall, REDCAT, The John Anson Ford Amphitheatre and LACMA. Performers for the festival will be announced in May. For more information about the Angel City Jazz Festival, please go to www.angelcityjazz.com.