ABOUT NARLUGA ARTS
Narluga Arts is a grants management and consulting firm working with socially-engaged artists and organizations. We specialize in hybridized, collaborative projects, supporting an extraordinary cohort of multidisciplinary artists who believe art has the power to change the world.
Jason Ditzian
Executive Director
Jason studied Biology, Creative Writing and Music at George Washington University. During his senior year he took an internship at the Washington Performing Arts Society, working with Alvin Ailey, Kronos Quartet, Steve Reich and other luminaries, sparking a lifelong love of working in the arts presenting field. After graduation, Jason moved to San Francisco and immersed himself in the eclectic arts scene. As a multi-wind instrumentalist and composer, Jason has performed, recorded and toured internationally with artists such as Charming Hostess, Oakland Symphony, SF Symphony, Dohee Lee, Joan Baez, Frank London, inkBoat and SF Mime Troupe. He is clarinetist and leader of klezmer ensemble, Kugelplex and Publisher of online community, Klezmer.com.
On the presenting side of the equation, Jason began working with organizations in 2003, producing shows and festivals, working in marketing departments, and creating and executing development strategies. Jason has helped raise millions of dollars for nonprofit arts organizations.
Career highlights include co-founding and co-producing the International Body Music Festival with Guggenheim Fellow, Keith Terry; winning a 2011 American Council of Engineering Companies Engineering Excellence Award for the Bowls Project with Charming Hostess; winning an Isadora Duncan Dance Award for his work with Butoh legends, Koichi and Hiroko Tamano; and co-founding and directing Dohee Lee Puri Arts with Guggenheim Fellow, Dohee Lee.
Jason founded Narluga Arts in 2019 to support artists and organizations in increasing their capacity and realizing their visions and to help further the field of socially-engaged arts.
Eva Lin Fahey
Project Manager
Eva Lin Fahey is a painter, designer, and writer based in Western Massachusetts. She primarily works in water-based media to create abstracted, dream-like spaces that explore the interconnections between family, cultural hybridity, and identity.
A 2023 ValleyCreates Grantee through MASS MoCA's Assets for Artists program, she has exhibited in Massachusetts — Amherst, Easthampton, Northampton, Ware, Wilmington, and South Yarmouth — as well as in El Dorado, Arkansas.
An adoptee from China, Eva is currently creating work that investigates the intricate connections to her origins and the diaspora of girls from China through international adoption. After completing her BFA at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, she continues to create and exhibit work while combining her visual work with poetry and writing.
Her paintings and writing were recently published in Afterlives: An AGNI Portfolio of Asian Adoptee Diaspora Writing.
All Narluga Arts' narluga illustrations are original works by Eva.
Jesse Olsen Bay
Grants Associate
Jesse Olsen Bay is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Western Massachusetts. Bay's work centers on facilitating community musical groups, including community marching bands and singing circles. As a composer, he collaborates frequently with choreographers and dance companies, for which he has received two Isadora Duncan Awards. His work has been supported by New Music USA, American Composer’s Forum, Ucross Foundation, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Bay is the founding director of Weathervane Community Arts, an organization that builds community through music in Western Massachusetts and beyond. He is currently on faculty at Umass Amherst. More at www.jesseolsenbay.com