Continuing over 20 years of commissioning Bay Area artists, Yerba Buena Gardens Festival is thrilled to announce a spectacular group of local artists selected to receive YBG Festival Seed Commissions in 2025. This innovative program provides unrestricted funds as “seeds” for the creative process. The artists represent an array of disciplines in dance, music and performance.
The 2025-2026 artists are below.
Joshua Icban
Joshua Icban is a working musician, composer, educator and proud son of Vallejo, CA. He has had the honor to perform as a guitar player with various Bay Area groups and international talent including the San Francisco Philharmonic Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Grammy award winning musician and Oakland artist Fantastic Negrito. As a composer and sound designer he has collaborated with institutions such as legacy Filipino American performing arts performance arts organization KulArts, Brava Theatre for Women in the Arts and Bindlestiff Studio. His work has been previously featured at the Asian Art Museum, Fringe Manila Arts Festival in the Philippines and as a part of the United States of Asian America Festival hosted by APICC in 2023. Josh holds an MA in ethnomusicology from CSU East Bay and wrote his thesis on the impact and history of Filipino American musicians on the west coast of the United States.
Destiny Muhammad
Destiny Muhammad is a recording and performing artist, band leader, composer and producer. Her collaborations and curations include Healdsburg Jazz Black History Month Resident Artist, collaborator with composer Marcus Shelby for Zaccho Dance “The Peoples Palace,” featured on KQED podcast & Sunday Music Drop, SFJAZZ Teaching Artist, Tribute to Native American Jazz Artist Jim Pepper and a Zaccho Dance Black Futures Artist in Residence. Destiny is a San Francisco Arts Commission Cohort Cultural Ambassador. In 2025 she released her latest album The Destiny Muhammad Trio Volume Two. Destiny is an Elected Governor of the The Recording Academy, San Francisco Chapter, an ASCAP Songwriter Awardee, a Chamber Music America/ Doris Duke Foundation Performance Plus Award Winner and a California Arts Council Legacy Fellow.
PHER
PHER, formerly known as Chris Turner, is a rare artist fully versed in both the jazz tradition and classic soul, equally comfortable in either universe. An Oakland native and global singing phenomenon, he gained invaluable experience in the Bay Area, attending the Young Musicians Program and San Francisco School of the Arts, as well as performing with his dad’s group Pure Ecstasy. PHER studied at the New School in New York and later joined the Jazz Program faculty in 2013. As a voice instructor he has taught beginning singers, college students and acclaimed pop artists. PHER is honored to be a part of three Grammy Award-winning projects as a vocalist including two awards on Esperanza Spalding’s Radio Music Society album and one award for Jon Batiste’s Hollywood Africans. He has toured and recorded internationally with his own group, as well as with music industry legends like Usher, The Roots, Robert Glasper, Stevie Wonder, Kanye West, Bootsy Collins, Eddie Palmeri and many more.
SNJV
SNJV (sun-jeev; any pronoun) is an artist, director and educator whose three decades of performance practice blur the boundaries between dance, drag and film. A cultural force with a cinematic vision, SNJV builds textured worlds that honor queerness, heritage and the possibilities of performance. Their work has been featured on major stages and festivals, including Outside Lands and Yerba Buena Gardens ChoreoFest, and their films have earned global recognition. The first South Asian Mr. GAPA and co-founder of Parivar, SNJV champions queer and trans South Asian communities through both creative and community-centered leadership. Their direction and choreography span installations, stage works, and nightlife performance, with pieces presented internationally. As an educator, SNJV has shaped conversations on performance, identity and belonging at Stanford University, UC Berkeley and beyond. Whether onstage, behind the camera, or guiding future artists, SNJV brings a singular blend of vision, rigor and heart.
Nadhi Thekkek
Nadhi Thekkek is a dancer, choreographer, educator and the Artistic Director of Nava Dance Theatre. Nadhi uses the south Indian dance form of bharatanatyam to navigate place, identity and politics through the lens of her lived experience as a child of immigrants and a South Asian, diasporic woman. Her body of work connects contemporary histories to today, creating critical intersections of culturally specific art, diaspora and storytelling. She reimagines how bharatanatyam can serve marginalized narratives that need to occupy space right now. Nadhi’s body of work has been supported through the NEFA National Dance Project, The MAP Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, San Francisco Arts Commission and others. She was recently named a Dance USA Artist Fellow.