Reflections on the 2025 Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR)

From Caroline Mallonee, Director of CMR

The 2025 Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR) was a blast! This summer marked CMR’s 15th season, and this year we welcomed 44 participants between the ages of 19 and 83, hailing from 24 states and Washington, DC. We have a dedicated cadre of CMR alumni who return year after year. This year, 13 of our alumni came; some of them have come to Walden more than 10 times!

Left-to-right: Caroline Mallonee, Tristan Donaldson, and Paula Matthusen at a CMR Composers Forum (photo credit: J. Lester Feder)
Above: Jamming on Gillespie porch at CMR (photo credit: J. Lester Feder)

The Composer-in-Residence always brings their unique music-making and helps set the tone of the festival. This year, Paula Matthusen had her music performed on the opening concert, gave an illuminating talk on her music (including her projects in unique spaces like caves and aquifers), and coached a group of 17 participants for a performance of her Umbrella Etudes on Thursday’s Performers Night. They recorded themselves in different spaces—under an umbrella, under an overhang in the rain—and Paula then mixed these into a broadcast. During the immersive performance, performers and audience members took umbrellas and wandered in the quad, holding radios that played the broadcast. It was a magical experience—one that was both collective and individual, one that was happening in real time but that was about memory, too.

Performers Night also included an antiphonal performance by four trumpets of a Gabrieli canzone, eight pianists sharing a performance of CMR faculty member (and Walden alumna) Loretta Notareschi’s Shape Preludes, and a special, large-group performance of In C, in celebration of Terry Riley’s 90th birthday.

Above: CMR faculty member (and Walden alumna) Renée Favand-See leading an inside-the-piano exploration (photo credit: J. Lester Feder)
Above: A performance of Paula Matthusen’s Umbrella Etudes at CMR (photo credit: J. Lester Feder)

There were amazing performances by participants, faculty, and our Artists-in-Residence (including 35 world premieres on Composers Forums). And the magic in the classroom created by our veteran faculty continues the long tradition of innovative pedagogy that Walden is known for.

Per Walden tradition, a group hiked Mount Monadnock on a sunny Saturday, eating lunch and singing at the top of the mountain. We concluded the week with an open mic where participants showed off even more sides of their musical personalities, and we ended the evening dancing together.

An invitation to all: join us next year! Tell the creative musicians you know! You’re never too old to go to Walden!

Sincerely,

Caroline Mallonee
Director, The Walden School Creative Musicians Retreat

Above: A group musical exercise at CMR (photo credit: J. Lester Feder)

This reflection was originally published as part of the September 2025 InterNetzo.