Seth Brenzel, Executive Director & Director, Young Musicians Program
Marguerite Ladd, Director of Operations & Development Project Manager
Esther Landau, Director of Development
Caroline Mallonée, Director, Creative Musicians Retreat & Academic Dean, Young Musicians Program
Jefferson Packer, Director of Administration
Sam Pluta, Academic Dean, Young Musicians Program & Computer Music Coordinator
Seth Brenzel
Executive Director
Director, Young Musicians Program
Seth Brenzel has been associated with The Walden School for more than 25 years. He was lucky to be a student at Walden for six summers (1985-1990), and since 1994, has served the School as a staff member, faculty member, Director of Operations, and as the Associate Director from 1996 to 2003, when he became the School’s Executive Director. He has served on the boards of The Walden School, Swarthmore College, and Earplay, a San Francisco-based new music ensemble. He is a Past President of the Swarthmore College Alumni Association. Seth has also served on the Development Council for the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. Seth received his B.A., with degrees in Music and Political Science, from Swarthmore College, and received an M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.
Prior to becoming Walden’s first full-time Executive Director in June 2007, Seth worked part-time for Walden during the year and held positions as a senior consultant at Deloitte Consulting, in marketing and public relations at the San Francisco Symphony, and most recently led both the marketing and the enterprise sales teams for the internet software company, Atomz (now part of Adobe). For 17 years, he has sung tenor with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, which in 2010 won the Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance for its recording of Mahler’s Symphony 8. He is currently one of 30 paid members of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, and as such, is a member of the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA); he currently serves as shop delegate. In April 2011, he sang with the Sanford Dole Ensemble in San Francisco in performances of works by Robert Kyr and James MacMillan. He currently studies voice with Ruth Rainero. When not in Dublin, New Hampshire, Seth lives in San Francisco with his partner, Malcolm Gaines, and their daughter, Cora.
Marguerite Ladd
Director of Operations
Development Project Manager
Marguerite Ladd, Director of Operations, received a bachelor of music degree in composition from New England Conservatory of Music and a masters degree in music theory and composition with concentration in scoring for film and multimedia at New York University. She has studied with Ira Newborn, Deniz Hughes, Michael Gandolfi, and Lee Hyla, and has worked closely with Mark Snow, John Malia, and Malcolm Peyton. Marguerite’s music has been performed by the Hudson River String Quartet, New England Conservatory’s Honors String Quartet, Philharmonic Orchestra and Chamber Singers, among other contemporary ensembles. She was awarded a full scholarship to attend the 2009 ASCAP Foundation Film Scoring Workshop in Memory of Buddy Baker. She worked for PBS in Boston composing music for several different kinds of media publications that focus on education. She has scored many short films and commercials including films for L.A. directors Celeste Ward and Kelly Donovan. She currently works for composer Tan Dun.
Esther Landau
Director of Development
Esther coordinates fundraising and development efforts for The Walden School. Prior to her arrival at Walden, Esther was the Managing Director for Citywinds, a critically acclaimed new music wind quintet which commissioned and premiered more than 100 new works for winds. Esther received her B.M. in Flute Performance from the Oberlin Conservatory and her M.M. at the San Francisco Conservatory. She is a passionate advocate for new music, and has had the privilege of working directly with such composers as Luciano Berio, Elliott Carter, and Chen Yi. With more than two decades of teaching under her belt, Esther currently teaches flute lessons privately and through the San Francisco Conservatory’s Preparatory Division. Esther enjoys doing international folk dancing and in addition to the classical flute, has dabbled in playing the Irish penny whistle and the Bulgarian kaval. Esther lives in San Francisco with her spouse Caroline Pincus and their expressive daughter Ruby.
Caroline Mallonée
Director, Creative Musicians Retreat
Academic Dean, Young Musicians Program
Caroline has been on the faculty of The Walden School for ten summers. Carrie has written vocal, instrumental, electroacoustic, microtonal and computer music that has been performed in the United States, Mexico, Italy, England, Wales and the Netherlands. She has also written two operas and music for film. She has recently been in residence at the MacDowell Colony and at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Carrie holds degrees from Harvard University, The Yale School of Music and Duke University, and she was a Fulbright scholar to the Netherlands in 2004.
Carrie is active as a violinist: she is a member of pulsoptional, a sextet and composers’ collective based in Durham, NC, whose first album was released in April. She is also a founding member of Glissando bin Laden and his Musichideen, a quartet based in New York City that performs improvised electroacoustic microtonal music.
Jefferson Packer
Director of Administration
Jefferson joined The Walden School in Fall 2011, after completing Level I of the Teacher Training Institute. Previously, Jefferson served as Youth Orchestra Manager at the San Francisco Symphony, and Manager of Human Resources and Finance at Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.
Jefferson received his joint B.A. degree in Music and Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard University, and received an M.M. in Piano Performance from San Francisco State University. In addition to being an active piano accompanist of both singers and instrumentalists, he has sung with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus and the Grace Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys, and is currently a member of the American Bach Choir and the baritone soloist at St. Thomas Anglican Church in San Francisco. Jefferson lives in San Francisco with his partner, Marcel Gemperli, a professional violist, and Clarisse, their Pleyel piano.
Past Administration
Anne Deane Berman
Stephen Coxe
Kate Davis
Lindsay Edwards
Audrey Enriquez
Bradley Evans
Malcolm Gaines
Tanja Shipman Gubser
Thomson Guster
Lynn Taylor Hebden
Morgen Jahnke
Deborah Katz
Amelia Lukas
Laura Mehiel
Patricia Plude
Pamela Layman Quist
Brendon Randall-Myers
Thomas Serene
Benjamin Smith
Andrew Thams
Randy Thomas
Leo Wanenchak
