Yvonne Ervin
Executive Director

As executive director of the Western Jazz Presenters Network, Yvonne Ervin brings experience as an arts administrator, marketer and consultant as well as skills as a jazz writer, musician and historian. Ervin was the Jazz Projects Coordinator for the Western States Arts Federation for three years. In that position, she facilitated the growth of the WJPN.

She was the executive director of the Tucson Jazz Society for ten years, building it from 500 members and a $50,000 budget to become the largest jazz society in the country with 2,100 members and a budget of $250,000. She volunteered for the TJS for nine years before becoming the organization's first paid employee and, during that time, organized "Primavera," the world's longest-running women's jazz festival. For five years, she was marketing director for the Tucson Symphony Orchestra following a year in the same position with the statewide Arizona Dance Theatre.

For four year, she was the Secretary of the Executive Board of the International Association of Jazz Educators, representing the jazz industry on the board. In her mid-20s, she was the Vice President of the American Federation of Jazz Societies.

Ervin has held seminars on fundraising, audience development and marketing for many statewide and national conventions and was a marketing and artist career development consultant for the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the National Jazz Service Organization. The Mid-Atlantic Arts Alliance, hired her to write the curriculum for jazz presenters for a National Endowment for the Arts-funded three-year program. Trained in group facilitation methods and skilled in organizational development and planning, she facilitated the meeting where the Arizona Presenters Alliance was formed.

She is a contributing writer to Hot House magazine and has been published in Downbeat, as well. She was the jazz columnist for the Tucson Weekly for several years and has written liner notes for RCA, Capri and Doubletime records. Ervin holds a degree in music and journalism and was a visiting lecturer in Jazz History at her alma matter, the University of Arizona. For 20 years, she hosted jazz radio programs, first at Illinois State University and then on KUAZ in Arizona. A former jazz saxophonist, she performed in and led groups in Tucson and in her native Illinois.