In the Spotlight: Sam Pluta & Sky Macklay

In the Spotlight

Sam Pluta and Sky Macklay

Sam Pluta is a composer, laptop improviser, electronics performer, and sound artist who was on faculty at Walden for 16 summers. Though his work has a wide breadth, his central focus is on using the computer as a performance instrument capable of sharing the stage with groups ranging from new music ensembles to world-class improvisers. Sam is the Technical Director for the Wet Ink Ensemble, a group for which he is a member composer as well as principal electronics performer. He studied composition and electronic music at Columbia University, where he received his DMA in 2012.

Sky Macklay is a composer, oboist, and installation artist who was on faculty at Walden for nine summers. Her music is conceptual yet expressive, exploring extreme contrasts, surreal tonality, audible processes, humor, and the physicality of sound. As a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, her next project is a chamber music album that will synthesize her work as a composer and her raucous, multiphonic-rich oboe performance practice. She is a founding member of the New York-based Ghost Ensemble. Macklay completed her DMA in composition at Columbia University.

In the last year, Sky and Sam have taken up teaching positions at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, continuing a long and deep association between Peabody, The Walden School, and the Junior Conservatory Camp (JCC), Walden’s predecessor program. JCC founder Grace Newsom Cushman, along with Walden co-founders Pam Quist, David Hogan, and Lynn Taylor Hebden, each enjoyed a long association with Peabody, and hundreds of Walden and JCC alumni first learned of JCC and Walden while studying music at the Peabody Prep. For many decades, there was a bus that left Peabody early in the morning on the last Saturday of June, filled with eager campers bound for New England to kick off each amazing summer of Walden (and perhaps JCC, too?).

How and when did your relationship with Walden begin, and what has been your involvement since then?

Sam: My relationship with Walden started in 2001 when I was on staff just after finishing college. In 2002, I was hybrid staff and faculty, and then from 2004 to 2016 I was on faculty at YMP. I was also Director of Computer Music at YMP from 2008 to 2016, and Academic Dean for at least 5 years until 2016. I was one of the founding faculty members of the Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR) in 2012, and on faculty at CMR for five years. When I was teaching at the University of Chicago, the quarter system made it impossible for me to do CMR, but now I’ll be back teaching at CMR this summer.

Sky: My relationship with Walden began in 2009 when I attended the Teacher Training Institute (TTI), and I absolutely loved it! I applied to be on faculty at Walden’s Young Musicians Program (YMP) the next year and got the job, and I was a faculty member at YMP from 2010 to 2018. I have also been on staff and a participant at CMR. I haven’t been on faculty for a few years now, but it’s my dream to teach at Walden again in the future.

Could you describe a favorite memory from your time at Walden?

Sky: One of my favorite parts of Walden is open mic night. I would host open mic nights a lot, and it was just such a wonderful time for everyone to share their creativity. One open mic night coincided with Christmas in July, and a YMP student named Evan Johnson [a 2022 YMP staff member] was my Secret Santa. For my present he gave me a really beautiful song that he wrote about me and Sam, so Sam and I danced to it at the open mic, but Sam was wearing Santa makeup, and the Santa makeup got all over my face while we were dancing!

Sam: Alex Christie [current YMP and CMR faculty and leadership team] wrote the Mountain Song almost 20 years ago, and the students still sing it whenever they hike Mt. Monadnock. It’s amazing to see a student get up to present something and you don’t know what it’s going to be, and then it’s something amazing that becomes part of the fabric of Walden, which will be passed down by generations of students.

Could you share some highlights from composing or performing in the last year?

Sky: I had a string quartet premiered by Kronos Quartet as part of the Bang on a Can Loud Weekend at Mass MoCA. I also made a new harmonica installation called Harmonitrees at Stetson University, and now I’ve integrated two of the trees into a new piece of chamber music called Harmonifriends with Ghost Ensemble, which was recently premiered at Uptown Underground in New York.

Sam: This weekend the double-bar bandit arrived and put the double bars on my piece for orchestra and electronics, called Seeker, for the Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music in September.

What are your current positions at Peabody?

Sam: I’m an associate Professor of Computer Music. At Peabody, composition and computer music are separate departments, but they’re both departments for composition, just with a different focus.

Sky: I’m a Lecturer in Composition. I mostly teach composition, and in the fall I’ll also be teaching a class called Composers of the AACM (Association of for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), which I’m really excited about. I’m also the composition coordinator for the low-residency master’s program, which is a new format that offers more flexibility for composers who may not be able to relocate for a master’s degree. It’s an intense summer experience, followed by two semesters of online classes, and then another intense summer experience. My Walden skills are especially helpful in creating an amazing summer festival experience and fostering a musical community in a short period of time.

How has Walden pedagogy informed your university teaching?

Sam: Part of the job in teaching is creating a community, creating situations where students get together to make music and teach each other. There’s nothing better than teaching for 16 years at Walden to make you understand how to foster community.

Sky: I take that same attitude from Walden, where composers forums provide a model for respectful dialogue involving composers and performers. I use creative musicianship and “Discover, Drill, Create” all the time in my composition lessons. If a student is stuck, I try to find a piece where we can discover something related to what they’re working on and create a drill based on it, which can help students get through creativity blocks and get the notes flowing.

Are there any reflections you could share on the Walden legacy at Peabody?

Sky: At Peabody, we are traversing the same halls as [JCC founder] Grace Cushman and a lot of Walden people including Steve Coxe, Leo Wanenchak, and Pam Quist. I recently came across an old Peabody newsletter that mentions a Walden alumna named Laura Kolker. It says she was a Peabody Prep student who won a BMI award and went to Walden four times, where she studied with Pam Quist, John Yankee, and Paul Nauert.

Sam: Pam Quist was the first person to teach electronic music at Walden, using tape-splicing equipment in the 1970s and ’80s. Pam learned that from Jean Eichelberger Ivey, who started electronic music at Peabody more than 50 years ago. So for me to bring my Walden pedagogy back to Peabody in the form of Walden’s Computer Musicianship course, which is the basis of all my electronic music teaching, that’s a pretty awesome circle!

Sky: For my Composers of the AACM class, I was researching the Schillinger method of composition, because one of the AACM composers, Muhal Richard Abrams, was a Schillinger practitioner. I believe the Schillinger method was an inspiration for some Walden and JCC teachers, including Grace Cushman. Joseph Schillinger was a composer who created a system involving algorithmic ways of generating rhythms and pitches. There’s a major Schillinger archive at Peabody, and the librarian who organized it was Ned Quist, who performed at Walden as part of Cross Country and wrote a beloved arrangement of “To My Old Brown Earth.”

by Sammi Stone

In the Spotlight: David Roberts

In the Spotlight

David Roberts

David Roberts is the parent of YMP alumnus Marco Roberts, and a member of Walden’s Board of Directors. Before moving his family to the Seattle area in 2016, David lived and worked in China for 20 years, most recently as a partner in the Beijing office of O’Melveny & Myers where he practiced corporate and securities law. For a brief period, the four-piece Roberts Family Band rocked the Beijing elementary school and office party circuit with an eclectic mix of Beatles, Cui Jian, and Soundgarden covers until breaking up over creative differences. Having retired from his law career, David spends his time writing fiction, competing in table tennis tournaments around the U.S., and skiing every storm possible in the Cascade Range.

How and when did you get connected to Walden?

I first got connected to Walden in 2014. Our family was living in Beijing at the time. My wife is from Beijing, and both our kids, Marco and his younger sister Sophia, had grown up in Beijing all their lives, our home for 13 years. Connecting with Walden was not intuitive or easy, and it’s amazing that we found it.

At that time, Marco was becoming immersed in music, through his own initiative. He had started composing on his own and when he watched the movie Amadeus, he completely connected with images of Mozart composing by hand. He figured out how to make his own staff paper and printed it out and started composing a chamber symphony all on his own.

We thought, “Okay, this is not normal” because none of us were teaching him, he was teaching himself. We tried to find a composition teacher in Beijing, but it’s very difficult to join that world if you don’t have preexisting connections. I was looking online, and I found Walden among several other programs in the US. Something about Walden connected-it just looked right. I called the office and spoke with Seth, and that was really helpful, but it still sounded pretty daunting. How could we get him from Beijing to rural New Hampshire? Seth also put me touch with an alumni parent who was living in Beijing, whose daughter had attended Walden a number of years before, and she put our minds at ease.

What has been your involvement since then?

Marco first attended Walden when he was 12, and he did five summers in a row, from 2015-2019. Our family was still in China during his first summer, then his second summer we were in transition, moving to the Seattle area. We could tell from the first summer that Marco had found his place-he just loved Walden. We could see that he was developing and growing in the program, and knew it was perfect for him. So my initial involvement was just as a parent. I visited a few summers, not every summer, because even from Seattle it isn’t an easy trip.

Our summer 2020 plans were still up in the air when the pandemic happened. We were struggling with what to do when OYME became an option. He signed up and it was great–I am so glad he had those four weeks. The program was unexpected and improvisational, and it was really well done. Marco composed several pieces, but his piece for Festival Week was really meaningful. He has a deep interest in geopolitics, especially regions that are often overlooked. He composed a haunting piece inspired by Armenian music called Erasure that explores ongoing conflicts among Turkey and its neighbors. Two months after he finished the piece, war broke out in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan. That piece really showed what Walden did for him–it went from a love of music to using it as a language to interpret and comment on the world around him.

Could you describe a favorite memory or experience from being a Walden parent?

My favorite experience is basically the whole first summer, how improbable it was and then watching it become a reality. Sophia named it “Operation Marco” because there were so many pieces that needed to come together. As a family we went from Beijing to Seattle, where we put Sophia in a different camp and lived out of a basement apartment while our new home was being remodeled, then Marco and I flew to New York, and drove from there up to New Hampshire together. He was very quiet, and I could tell he was nervous. As we got closer, taking winding roads through the countryside, my phone lost reception and I casually remarked, “Wow, this is really remote,” without thinking what Marco was absorbing. Of course, he had grown up in a city of 30 million people, and now we’re in the middle of nowhere without cell service. He started to cry. We talked it through, and I tried to reassure him it would be okay, but he was pretty scared. Finally we arrived at Walden, and I was amazed how friendly and warm the vibe was-it was clearly a special place. There were faculty and staff members greeting students, and they immediately made Marco feel welcome. I stuck around for a few hours, and we met other parents and kids, and he started talking to the other kids, so by the time I left I could tell he was going to be okay.

I was still nervous all summer. That drop-off was a big step for him, but I didn’t know how he was going to handle five weeks so far from home when he had never done a live-away program before. He called about a week later and told me that one of the senior campers, Jane, had brought a Chinese instrument to camp (a zither, I believe) and said if anyone was interested in composing for it, they should talk to her. He asked, “Should I talk to her?” and I said, “Absolutely!” Then I didn’t hear about it for the rest of the summer. We showed up for Festival Week really excited to hear his piece, but he had hardly told us anything about it-when he gets excited about something, he’s so immersed he doesn’t say much. But we saw the program, so we knew his piece would be for this instrument, along with violin and cello. Jane and The Walden School Players played the piece beautifully, and I know I’m biased as a proud parent, but it was the best thing I’d ever heard. I couldn’t believe it. I thought, “This is what he learned in five weeks? This is incredible.” It was so different from what he had been writing on his own before going to Walden. Those pieces were impressive to me, but you could tell he was mostly drawing on Mozart. I had never heard him improvise anything remotely like this piece-it was so unique and drew on both his Chinese upbringing and his love of European music and opera. So that first visit is one of my favorite Walden memories.

How are music and/or creativity part of your life?

I grew up with completely non-musical parents who made a concerted effort to expose me to a lot of music. My mother used to joke about being tone-deaf, and neither of my parents really read music, but they put me in piano and trumpet lessons and I sang in the San Francisco Boys Chorus from age 7-13, which was a great experience. So, I am an amateur musician but can play enough piano to have gotten Marco interested in the instrument from a young age.

Now, creativity for me is mostly writing. I left my law career to pursue writing fiction. I’ve been taking classes at Hugo House in Seattle and working on a novel for several years, which is a difficult project, and I’ve also written several short stories. That has given me an appreciation for how difficult any creative process is-it’s just really hard work. You have to learn craft skills and how to apply them to achieve your creative vision. So a place like Walden, even for an adult musician, is really cool because someone might love music and want to create music, but you have to learn skills too and find a community that supports your creativity. You generally can’t just wing it on your own. Pursuing writing has given me a new appreciation for how difficult it is to be an artist.

What is your hope or dream for Walden’s future?

Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken. There is definitely something to be said for preserving traditions and the way things work, but I like how Walden is innovative at the same time. It’s this very interesting balance between traditions (those unique Walden-y things that have been done for decades) and also being experimental and on the cutting edge, whether it’s digital music, or this past summer turning on a dime to create online programs from scratch that still preserved the Walden feel. My hope is just that Walden keeps going strong, preserves its core traditions, and continues to innovate with the core traditions and its sense of community as the foundation for that growth.

by Sammi Stone

In the Spotlight: Robin Seto

In the Spotlight

Robin Seto

Robin Seto attended JCC for four summers and Walden for two summers, graduating from Smith College in 1979 and then University of Hawaii John A Burns School of Medicine in 1983. After completing the University of Hawaii Internal Medicine Residency Program in 1986, she and her internal  medicine husband Stephen Denzer moved to the Big Island of Hawaii with the intent of providing comprehensive primary care to an underserved rural community as private practice physicians. In 2004, she joined the Hawaii Permanente Medical Group at the Kaiser Kona clinic, moving to Oahu in 2018 to join the Kaiser Permanente Hawaii Internal Medicine Residency Program.  They have two children, Brittany, age 27, a 4th year medical student at the University of Colorado and Ian, age 22, a graduating senior at Yale University in mechanical engineering.

How and when did you relationship with JCC begin?

My relationship with JCC began in the spring of 1969, when I won the Peabody Preparatory Spring Musicianship frolic as an 11-year-old, and was asked by Mrs. Cushman to attend JCC as a recipient of the Elizabeth Brouha JCC scholarship. My first summer at JCC was an eight-week immersion into a culture where creativity and community were the underlying values of the musicianship curriculum, followed by three additional summers at JCC and two at Walden. Those summers became the driving passion for someone intrinsically shy and introverted. I had the privilege of David Hogan’s teaching and mentorship during the summers and the academic school years as a Musicianship student at the Peabody Prep.

Many years later, as a physician mother working in Kealakekua, a rural community on the Big Island of Hawaii, I believed in the magic of JCC enough to want to embed the same values and experiences into my daughter’s life. Though both my son and daughter had been dutifully enrolled in Junior Music Academy and piano lessons in Kona, I bemoaned the fact that they would not have access to the quality of a Peabody Preparatory education. I considered volunteering as a physician to fill the nurse position posted by Walden, so my daughter could attend as a student, but opted instead for a series of mother daughter journeys back to Walden for the reunions when she was ages 3, 8, 13 and 18. Later, much to my delight, I discovered that, through those reunions, my daughter Brittany had developed her own personal friendship with my JCC roommate, Tamar Bloch, and in college, to her glee, discovered that she had enough credits to minor in music! Connecting with my children through music allowed them to see and connect with another aspect of me that I found most gratifying.

Could you describe a favorite memory from your time at JCC?

I do not have a one, but rather a myriad of JCC memories, as an 11 to 14-year-old, as though they just happened yesterday. The setting of the Burklyn Manor in Vermont, as a child, felt like living in a castle on top of a hillside, surrounded by mountains. Tears still come to my eyes when I recall singing “Come Close the Curtains of Your Eyes” to David Hogan’s accompaniment and listening to his “Bist du bei mir” while lingering on the Burklyn manor staircase. Mrs. Cushman would wake us up each morning at 7am, clanging the bell and singing, “Good morning to you.” In those days, without cable or YouTube, and reliant on live performances, I remember the thrill of the Sunday afternoon faculty concerts – the brilliance of Alan Shewmon’s and Hugh Wolff’s piano performances, the colors and sounds of Georgia Cushman’s dancing and the beauty of Monteverdi’s duet “Pur ti miro, Pur ti godo” sung by David Hogan and Nansi Carroll. I recall the sense of exhilaration while eating oranges on the mountain peaks after a long Saturday morning hike, then swinging through the Virginia Reel at Saturday night square dances. The Mendelssohn Piano Trio in D minor played at Mrs. C’s memorial concert will to this day make me pause and reminisce about my JCC summers.

What is something from JCC you have carried with you?

JCC gave me the foundation for a wonderful college experience as a music major at a small liberal arts college, Smith College, the alma mater of JCC faculty Ann Callaway. I was able to indulge in both piano performance and composition, and develop what was to be an influential 15-year relationship with Konrad Wolff, who had just retired from the Peabody Conservatory to teach piano during my freshman year. I was fortunate to be able to study with him in New York City during a three-month summer hiatus between my 1st and 2nd year of internal medicine residency, making time for a visit to the Walden campus together.

The most recent Zoom JCC reunion prompted me to reflect more deeply upon this question, acknowledging that music is not at the forefront of my life. I believe that the repeated summer JCC exposures as a child and teenager imprinted on my developing brain a set of learning values, emphasizing self-actualization, perseverance, joy of learning and sharing in a collaborative, supportive, non-judgmental environment. The goal of such an “appreciative or transformative” learning experience is to create a “growth mindset”.

At JCC, we were not taught how to compose, but rather, through analysis and experience of sound, encouraged to independently explore through the act of composition, presenting our works at the weekly Monday night forums for open discussion and feedback. The atmosphere was respectful, non-judgmental, and inter-generational, with the goal of fostering a collaborative, supportive, and creative community.

I believe that the acquisition of the “growth mindset” through my JCC summers contributed to my success and happiness through college and medical school, and then as a physician, mother, and now, after 32 years primary care in Kona, teaching faculty member of the Kaiser Permanente Hawaii Internal Medicine residency program on the island of Oahu since 2018.

How are music and/or creativity part of your life now?

When I was 13, Hugh Wolff presented George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children to our class, while, at the same time, Humphrey Evans introduced us to John Cage’s definition of music as sound and silence placed in time. The sound of voices, percussion and instrumental ensemble in George Crumb’s work and our class performance of John Cage’s Fontana Mix – “Music is all around us if we only listened” – embedded a lifetime memory of attentive mindfulness to sound, space, and movement, which I believe I carry to this day as a physician. When I enter a patient encounter, I feel, sense, and hear the space, glances and nuances of the patient, family, and/or caregiver, remaining attentive to sound and emotions. In this sense, I can “hear music” in much of what I do.

As an internist, my philosophy of care is based on the principles of palliative care, which include respect for an individual’s values and beliefs, and care based on a bio-psychosocial and spiritual model. I believe my experiences in music have led me to this point in my career, when I more fully understand and can articulate the importance of blending the art and humanities with the science of medicine.

In a book called Attending by Ronald Epstein, the four foundations of mindfulness – Attention, Curiosity, Beginner’s Mind, and Presence — are outlined as a means to increase physician capacity to promote more patient- centered care for medically complex patients. Mindful awareness of self and others is a cornerstone of the JCC and Walden experience.

On a more concrete note, given the consuming nature of life as a primary care physician, my current goal is to bring music more purposefully back into my life, inspired in part from the most recent JCC Zoom reunion. My 3rd year resident, as a member of Medical Notes, the Hawaii Permanente Medical Group string chamber ensemble, just told me recently that they would be thrilled if I would join them for a piano quintet.

Why do you give to Walden?

I give to Walden in the memory of Mrs. Cushman and David Hogan, and to say “thank you” to all the persons who had the commitment to ensure that Mrs. Cushman’s creative approaches to teaching music would live on following the founding of The Walden School in 1972. I still remember the tenuous period following Mrs. Cushman’s death in 1971, the responsibility she placed on David Hogan and Pamela Quist, then only in their 20’s, to carry her work forward, and the steady guidance of Mrs. Lynn Hebden and later Pat Plude. I salute the brilliance of Seth Brenzel’s leadership to lead Walden to a broader, more professional, and international presence in the digital age, and now its perseverance through the Covid-19 pandemic.

What is a hope you have for Walden’s future?

I hope that Walden will continue to flourish as a beacon of light for transformative learning, with the understanding that the underlying values and principles of Walden offer opportunities that are broader than the focus on music alone, and of significant value to our society as a whole.

by Sammi Stone

In the Spotlight: Amirah Stewart

In the Spotlight

Amirah Stewart

Amirah Stewart is a violist and saxophonist born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Amirah is a Walden alumna who spent four summers at the Young Musicians Program. She has also attended Juilliard MAP and Face The Music. She has a Bachelor of the Arts in Music from Hunter College. Throughout her 12 years of playing, she has performed various genres of music including classical, contemporary, r&b, and rap. She has performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall, The Symphony Space, The Queens Museum, WQXR, Alice Tully Hall, and many more around the New York City area. Amirah’s true passions are creating, performing, and sharing her music with world.

How and when did you relationship with Walden begin, and what has been your involvement since then?

I had a cousin who went to Walden, and my aunt and I went to pick him up at the end of the summer. I saw the campus, and I was in love with it, and everyone looked like they were really happy to be there and happy to be alive. When I got home, I told my mom it was something I would be interested in, and so the next summer, the summer of 2011, was my first summer.

I haven’t been as involved with Walden since being a student, which is sad, but it’s challenging to juggle school and work and other things. Now that I’ve finished school, I hope to be more involved, going to composers forums and other events in New York City. The get-togethers we would have in the winter are some of my favorite winter memories, seeing my Walden friends. We all had different things going on during the year, but we put that time aside to be together, and also see other students, faculty, and staff from outside New York who would come to the gathering.

Could you describe a favorite memory from your time at Walden?

I think the dances are some of my favorite memories. At Walden, you have the opportunity to be who you want to be for five weeks, but particularly the dances are a time to be as weird as you want to be, create your own costumes from tinfoil and whatever else you can find, and everyone embraces that. The staff and faculty perform live, and even though you know how talented they are, you don’t often get to see them showcase that the way they do at the dances, and being playful and weird along with us. The songs Do You Love An Apple and the Tennessee Waltz are songs to this day I listen to and get a little emotional, because I miss that time. You dance with close friends, and also with students you haven’t necessarily spent a lot of time with and connect with through the dances, and faculty and staff are always there to jump in or to teach you the steps.

How are music and/or creativity part of your life now?

I went to college and studied education, but the program I was in required another major to complement the education major. Many people in the education program pair it with history or sociology or English or math, and I do love those, but I have been doing music since I was a baby, so why not take the chance to extend my knowledge? So I studied music and education in college, and now I teach music to babies and young children, 4 months to 5 years, and that work is so fulfilling. At Walden, I always wondered how the faculty felt teaching us, and it seemed like they found it really fulfilling, so now I get to combine my education degree and my love of music.

In terms of creativity in general, I like doing things with my hands, which is part of why music is such a good outlet. I still play viola and saxophone, and I try my best to keep up with piano. For my job, I’ve gotten the opportunity to learn the basic of many instruments. Just last week I got a guitar. I feel stagnant if I’m not doing something creative. I also crochet and have been making sweaters and hats over quarantine, and I’ve started doing punch needle embroidery. For punch needle, you use a hollow needle that you draw yarn through, and then you poke it through monk’s cloth, and that leaves a pattern. All of these things keep me going and keep the creative juices flowing.

What is something from the past year you have been excited about?

I graduated from college. Graduation was on a Zoom call, but it was still a graduation. My mom was present for that, even though it was via a separate Zoom call in the living room. I’ve been excited just to see what the future holds after graduation. Some people graduate with a job alright lined up, others don’t, some don’t know what they want to do. I was in that uncertain place, especially with COVID, but things have a way of falling into place, and I feel like I’m on the right track now.

Is there a hope or dream for Walden’s future you could share?

I had a dream once about Walden being overseas in the mountains of Switzerland, in the summertime. It was gorgeous. We had morning meeting and the birds were chirping and there was water running–it was amazing. Of course, then I woke up to New York City, but it would be amazing if Walden were international. I think when some organizations expand, they lose the heart they started with, but the concept of Walden is so deeply ingrained that it couldn’t be lost.

It would be great for people to have access to Walden in more places. Walden became an oasis for me during high school that I needed in the summers. I think so many people need that space, and don’t know that there is somewhere they can go. You don’t have to be a maestro at Walden–if you enjoy music and you want to be there, the faculty will see that potential and work with you. I love that about Walden, and I think that would be great in more places. So “Walden around the world” is a dream I have.

by Sammi Stone

In the Spotlight: Michael Kropf

In the Spotlight

Michael Kropf

Michael Kropf is a composer whose work deals with hidden emotions and evocative places. He has collaborated with Marin Alsop, the Telegraph Quartet, the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra, and the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble. Michael completed his Master’s degree in Composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2016, and he is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in music composition at the University of Michigan. Michael attended the Creative Musicians Retreat in 2015 and is a faculty member at the Young Musicians Program.

How and when did you relationship with Walden begin, and what has been your involvement since then?

I first got to experience the Walden community when I attended the Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR) in the summer of 2015. It had been strongly recommended to me, and that was a summer when I wanted to do composition programs. I did a couple programs in that one summer, and CMR made much more of an impact than anything else I did that summer. I was really impressed by the program, really liked the musicianship curriculum, and enjoyed the choral singing. I made some great connections with teachers and other composers, even in that short time. It was really a pivotal moment for me. Two years later, I graduated from my Masters program and started teaching full time in San Francisco. I learned Walden was hiring faculty for the Young Musicians Program (YMP), so I applied, and have been a teacher for that program ever since!

Could you describe a favorite memory from attending CMR?

The program is relatively short compared to other types of programs, but it is packed with so many fantastic and valuable learning experiences! I remember feeling like I accomplished more in 9 days than I usually accomplished in an entire summer, in terms of my musical education. At CMR there are many optional activities, and I signed up for a lesson with D. J. Sparr, who was on faculty. I was working on an orchestra piece, and I brought it to him, and we had a whole lesson about orchestra writing. It’s a lesson I still refer back to when I’m writing for orchestra, because it was so incredibly helpful. So that lesson is one memory, but it was also surrounded by so many other wonderful things.

Could you describe a favorite memory from your time on faculty?

There are so many great ones, so it is difficult to choose! In the summer of 2019, the entire camp had reached the summit of Mount Monadnock and broke out in a spontaneous choral performance of Andrea Ramsey’s Stomp on the Fire. I loved that moment because it combined many of my favorite things. There was hiking, we were out in nature, and it was near the end of the summer, so all the students have this wonderful confidence in their own musicality and musicianship, and it shines through. They’re singing this complex choral piece really well, so much so that it was a challenge to keep up. That’s satisfying because you see how the students have blossomed as musicians throughout the summer. It’s also really beautiful because Mount Monadnock is one of the most climbed mountains in the country, so there are a lot of other people at the top, and you could see how much they were enjoying being on top of a mountain and hearing music. It was just this incredible moment where it felt like our joy in music-making spread beyond us, brightening the day of people around us. That was really special.

Outside of Walden, how are music and/or creativity part of your life?

I am currently working towards a doctoral degree in Music Composition at the University of Michigan, which involves both a lot of composing and teaching. I’m constantly drawing on my experiences from Walden for both! Music and creativity have been a helpful way for me to work through this difficult year – right after the pandemic began, a number of Walden community members began doing informal zoom improvisations and performances of Pauline Oliveros, and I found those very grounding. More recently, I had the opportunity to perform a movement of a new violin concerto that I’m writing, alongside a masked and socially-distanced orchestra, which was amazing. I think this year has helped me realize just how important the communal aspect of performing and listening to music together is for me.

What is a non-musical hobby that’s part of your life?

The 2019 YMP participants might know this a little too well, due to a certain activity involving spray-painted rocks, but I really enjoy gold-panning. I think there are a number of similarities between gold-panning and the way I like to compose, just in terms of that incessant searching and sifting through sand/musical ideas to find ones that “sparkle.” I took a geology class last fall, and I think both my composing and gold-panning have improved from that.

What is your hope or dream for Walden’s future?

The most immediate part is of course for us to meet in person again. Beyond that, the thing I hope for, which I think already happens, is that the creativity and the joy for music that exists at Walden continues to filter into the world around us. I do wish our society and the world around us could be more like that. I think everyone who has a camp or a musical experience where they feel that spirit ends up taking that with them as an aspiration. Walden is a very aspirational community.

I have a theory about that and the music of Pauline Oliveros. Oliveros’ music kind of takes the temperature of a community. If there is a lot of generosity and patience and the other good things we want our communities to have, the music goes really well. If those things are absent, that music does not function very well. I think Oliveros’ music being such a big part of Walden is indicative of the health of the community, and I wish for that to spread. I want the kindness and joy of music, and the sincerity I find in the Walden community, to keep spreading into the world around us, because those are very important and needed elements, as is the music itself.

by Sammi Stone

In the Spotlight: Mariana Szklo

In the Spotlight

Mariana Szklo

Mariana Szklo, PhD, MHS, is Associate Professor of Community and Environmental Health at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and serves as associate editor of the journals American Journal of Epidemiology and SLEEP. Her expertise is in applied sleep. Mariana was a student at Walden for seven summers, beginning in 1978.

How and when did you relationship with Walden begin?

Lynn Hebden, with Leo Wanenchak and Pat Plude, were my musicianship teachers at Peabody during the year, and recommended to my mother that I go to Walden. She told me I was going to Walden without a lot of advance notice. I had just finished third grade, and I asked, “What am I going to read on the trip?” the day I was traveling. She gave me a copy of Hamlet, and off I went on the bus. Looking back, six weeks in the summer after third grade was a long time.

It was a very memorable bus ride (starting in Baltimore with stops along the eastern seaboard). I met Jessie Urbaitis, who is only six months older, and became a lifelong close friend, and many others like Lance Reddick, who was a student a few years older, and John Yankee, who became my teacher and another lifelong friend. That was the beginning of my Walden experience, and I loved it so that I kept going back.

What was your experience at Walden like after that?

I was at Walden for seven summers, 1978-84, from the ages of 9 to 15, which is a long stretch, and very formative. During the year I studied at the Peabody Preparatory in Baltimore. Jeff Cohen was my piano teacher, and he also was affiliated with Walden. Walden was at the Mountain School in Vermont then, maybe ’78- ’82, and it was a very beautiful setting, very open and free form.

Because I was very young, I had a private orchestration class with David Hogan (Hoagie), and we would sit on the rock outside the dining hall. He also taught a score reading class my second summer, and it was challenging and very exciting. The demands were high, yet it was seamless. We never felt we couldn’t do it-everything was possible–and we never felt pressured, it was just interesting, and we learned. Hoagie was an inspiring teacher, and I have very clear memories of those classes.

There were many people I studied with over the years, both privately and in classes, and so many classes that were formative. David Drucker taught a 20th century music class, and I had saved the syllabus, which I sent to him recently. I studied with Ann Callaway as a composition teacher when I was around 12, and she was instrumental. I also studied composition and analysis with John Yankee many summers.

I arrived at Walden in 1978 really liking poetry, and John wrote Songs of Nonsense, with one song his setting of a little poem I’d written about a pen. I was learning about that interplay between poetry and music from the starting point of poetry. That connection with words and language was powerful for me, and I have a lifelong interest in poetry and words. I draw from Walden in many ways, I always have, but now I consciously draw on those experiences and consider how to bring them into what I do.

What stands out to you from that time?

The freedom that we had, how we could pursue anything we wanted. There were no boundaries, intellectually. I was a child, but there wasn’t any condescension, there was equality. I felt heard. It was musically exciting, and people also spoke of literature and poetry and science. I recall older students like Becca Hammann and Laura Giles reading nightly to us younger students (often from The Chronicles of Narnia), Tom Johnson’s chamber music sessions, Hoagie’s bell waking us every morning, and hiking, including Mt. Washington one summer.

There were many spontaneous evening musical events. Dede Ondishko, who was around 20 then, had been at conservatory, and she arrived one evening as a guest, and gave a talk on the Webern Piano Variations Op.28 in the library, and I recall her writing on the board in the library and explaining 12-tone music, and it was all quite exciting. I was 11, it was late at night, past my usual bedtime, and there was this sense of freedom–it was just about learning, and how exciting learning can be. There was no other agenda. I hope I have carried that with me. I think that’s still central in my life, that curiosity and immersion and love of learning, just as it is, without knowing where it may take you.

There was a sense of whimsy and also playfulness at Walden I’ve tried to carry with me. We developed that as students, and the faculty nurtured it. We had a sense of real immersion and engagement. We would all look at the stars at night, talking and singing. There is a silo on the campus of the Mountain School, and the whole camp sang Sanctus in the silo. I look back on those years really fondly, and to this day, some of my best dreams are of those early years.

How are music and/or creativity part of your life now?

I think that sense of the exploration being as important as where you arrive. Uncertain space can be very creative space. I’m always looking for interconnections among different mediums and ways of thinking. I’m in the process of planning a study of sleep in the Arctic. I’m collaborating with someone who has done a study of sleep in the Antarctic, as well as an oceanographer, and that spirit of collaboration was very much part of Walden. Studying things that are different and new relates to Walden, even though for me it’s in a field outside music. I think Walden helped me develop a sense of fearlessness. You have to try new things, and study what you want to study, whether or not it’s in vogue.

Music is with me all the time. I’m always listening to music and going to concerts and thinking about music. I’m married to Steve Coxe, who was also at Walden and is a composer. Our daughter Alice is 15, and she also loves music. She is a percussionist and really likes the melodic percussion instruments.

Are there other things you carry from Walden?

I think Walden has given me an appreciation for listening to people and not getting in the way of what they’re endeavoring to do. You provide them with information that might be able to assist them, but you don’t push them toward any particular thing. You never know what interrelationships will form or what they will mean. Everything is open, and unknown, and it’s an adventure, and that’s a spirit I found at Walden in those early years. It was just about being and learning, without constraints. I try to recreate that kind of environment for the students I teach and in research. I don’t always do it consciously, but these memories from Walden are part of me, and I want to recreate the endless possibility of that time.

You’d awaken and go to sleep with the sense of promise and beauty of each day at Walden, and the spirit of community. Once you experience this, it’s hard not to have in other settings, because you know what’s possible. It was very magical. I use that term sparingly, but it really was.

by Sammi Stone