December 2009 eNews: InterNetzo
Message from the Executive Director

By Seth Brenzel

Greetings from The Walden School! I hope this message finds each of you enjoying a festive, joyous and peaceful holiday season. We here in Walden’s administrative office are busy with many projects, including the production of this month’s newsletter, which I hope you will enjoy. We’d love to hear what you think about it (write to us at newsletter@waldenschool.org), and if you are so inclined, please forward it to your friends and colleagues.

While Walden’s principal programmatic activities take place during the summer months on the beautiful campus of the Dublin School, in Dublin, New Hampshire, there is much to report on that happens outside of New Hampshire and not during the summer. In October, we held a gala fundraising event, featuring Walden alumna Hilary Kole, at Birdland in New York City. In November, we were back in New York City for an Alumni Composers Forum featuring nearly a dozen Walden alumni presenting music of a great variety. We have Composers Forums planned in Baltimore (February 21) and San Francisco (May 16), as well. Later this month, we’ll be hosting holiday parties in Baltimore, San Francisco and New York City. Walden’s Teacher Training Institute is engaged with a series of activities with Keeping Score, a project of the San Francisco Symphony, in which we will be presenting Walden musicianship approaches to dozens of public school teachers. We are gearing up for Summer 2010, during which we will again run Teacher Training Institute workshops at Oberlin Conservatory and at Dublin School. And of course, we are in the thick of planning of the 2010 Young Musicians Program, lining up guest artists, faculty and staff, and welcoming applications for the Teacher Training Institute (TTI) and theYoung Musicians Program (YMP). If you or someone you know might be interested in one of our programs or may know of people interested, please spread the word.

None of these activities, nor any of our programs offered in the summer, could exist without the loyal and generous support of hundreds of donors. In our most recently completed fiscal year (ending September 30), more than 350 individuals and organizations made generous financial contributions to Walden and dozens of volunteers (alumni, board members, office assistants, et al.) gave of their time, all ensuring that our thriving school would be available to young musicians and music educators, both this year and for generations to come. On behalf of all us at Walden, I thank you – our friends and supporters – for your gifts of time, money and expertise. We could not do it without you.

In closing, I wanted to share with you some thoughts from Walden’s 2009 Composer-in-Residence, Stephen Jaffe, as he reflected on his experience at Walden:

"Being at Walden made me optimistic about the future of music. Here were fifty young musicians learning tangible musical skills, and imagining genuinely creative music. In these efforts they were guided by a skilled and caring faculty--and by each other. The younger students experience through the older students something they don't always get from peers at home: that it is really cool and interesting to be creative. When they return to their communities, and to Walden for another summer, they bring back a confidence in their imagination which creates boldness."

Happy New Year. Hope to see you at a Walden event or program in 2010!

Best wishes,

Copyright 2007-2010, The Walden School, All Rights Reserved.

Seth Brenzel