Announcing the Lance Reddick Scholarship

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:
Marisa Giller
314.630.4123, marisagiller@gmail.com

THE WALDEN SCHOOL ANNOUNCES LANCE REDDICK SCHOLARSHIP

Anonymous Donor Steps Forward to Honor Legacy of Esteemed Walden Alumnus and Actor, Lance Reddick, Creates Full Scholarship Program for Young Musicians 

DUBLIN, N.H., (January 18, 2024) – Today, The Walden School, the celebrated summer music school and camp, announced it received a $450,000 anonymous donation in memory of esteemed alumnus and actor, Lance Reddick, who passed away suddenly in the spring of 2023.

The donation will fund 10 full scholarships per year for its 2024-2026 Young Musicians Program, enabling deserving young musicians the opportunity to experience Walden’s summer five-week program free of charge. Five of the 10 scholarships will be awarded specifically to students from the Baltimore area in honor of Mr. Reddick’s hometown and the birthplace of The Walden School.

Mr. Reddick attended The Walden School from 1976-1980, returning in 1983 as a Walden faculty member. While he was a lifelong creator and student of music, he was most well known for his television and film work, particularly for his role as Cedric Daniels in “The Wire.”

Walden’s Young Musicians Program is a five-week summer camp for students ages 9 to 18 that offers musical training in a supportive musical community. Students attend classes in composition, musicianship, music history, choral singing, computer musicianship, jazz, and more. Dances, swim trips, mountain hikes, and open mic nights balance out this rigorous musical training.

“Lance would be so honored by these scholarships being named for him, and this project would really touch his heart,” said Stephanie Reddick, Lance’s wife.

Mr. Reddick openly shared the importance of financial assistance in allowing him to participate in creative opportunities like Walden’s program that shaped the arc of his life. The scholarship in his name will provide each student with full tuition, room, and board, along with a travel stipend.

"Lance was a wonderful supporter of Walden, and we are excited to see how Walden can be a springboard to future music creators who attend the Young Musicians Program as Lance Reddick Scholars,” said Seth Brenzel, Executive Director of The Walden School. “We are so grateful to the generous donor who made this transformative gift to honor Lance's legacy."

Applications are due Friday, March 1. To apply, visit waldenschool.org/apply/. To learn more about the Lance Reddick Scholarship, visit waldenschool.org/lance-reddick-scholarship/.

About The Walden School

The Walden School inspires artistic expression and personal growth through experiential music programs. Founded in 1972, the acclaimed summer music school and festival offers programs that emphasize creativity through musicianship, improvisation, and composition. Programs include the Young Musicians Program for youth ages 9-18, and the Creative Musicians Retreat for adults. The Summer Concert Series showcases free, public performances by renowned artists and ensembles that work closely with students and perform their original music. To learn more visit www.waldenschool.org.


Reflections on the 2023 Young Musicians Program (YMP)

Reflections on the 2023 Young Musicians Program (YMP)

From Seth Brenzel, Director of YMP and Walden School Executive Director

I had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday with friends and family here in San Francisco, and I hope that for those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving, you enjoyed a peaceful time with loved ones, as well. This is a wonderful time to reflect on all of the things for which I am grateful, and one of the things for which I am most appreciative this year is the amazing 2023 Young Musicians Program (YMP). We had a terrific session in Dublin on the gorgeous campus of the Dublin School. 56 students from around the United States, China, and Belgium joined 23 faculty, staff, nurses, and administrators for five outstanding weeks (and in some cases three weeks!) of creative music making.

We had exciting residencies with Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses; an opening concert given by percussionist and this summer’s Technical Director, Ross Karre; TAK Ensemble, led by Laura Cocks, which performed student works as well as faculty commissions; members of the International Contemporary Ensemble; and The Walden School Players, who this year were composed of Mabel Kwan (piano), Chris Wild (cello), Erica Dicker (violin), Zachary Good (clarinets), Dennis Sullivan (percussion), and Kyra Sims (horn).

Kari Francis was back for her second year as Walden’s Choral Director, and our choral concert was a wonderful success, featuring music by Veljo Tormis, Simon & Garfunkel, Lili Boulanger, Reena Esmail, Meredith Monk, and Billie Holiday, among many other wonderful composers and songwriters. Faculty members Nate Trier, Theo Trevisan, Francesca Hellerman, Lukáš Janata, Luke Schroeder, and Emi Ostrom assisted Kari in conducting choral ensembles and leading a summer filled with singing.

We were blown away and so very fortunate to have Nicole Mitchell as Walden’s Composer-in-Residence at YMP. In addition to her artistry and her own amazing music-making that she shared with our community, we were delighted by the way in which she worked with our students, providing insight and leading constructive dialogue with each YMP composer. She joyously interacted with the students, faculty, and the whole community, and indeed became a Walden community member herself during her seven-day residency. We all hope that our paths cross again sometime soon!

The summer was replete with fun—swim trips, Halloween-in-July featuring a haunted house, and beautiful mountain hikes, including the pinnacle trek up to the top of Mount Monadnock. We had an optional, non-denominational-holiday-in-July gift exchange. And we enjoyed dancing along to the music of Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses in their now-annual appearance on the “FAB-io,” the patio just outside the Fountain Arts Building on the Dublin School campus. This concert is a wonderful collaboration between Dublin School, The Walden School, and the Monadnock Folklore Society. Walden made its annual pilgrimage to MacDowell, the country’s preeminent artist residency program, in Peterborough (just 10 minutes from Walden!) to meet with and learn from composers Ashkan Behzadi and Aubrey Johnson. Thanks to Ashkan, we had the opportunity to visit one of the artist studios, outside of which the visiting students, faculty, and staff from Walden launched into spontaneous singing of one of our choral concert selections. On the walls of the artist studio, it was fun to see the names of past residents, including several Walden faculty members and artists-in-residence!

Some of you may have heard about the tornado that struck our campus during Festival Week, right in the midst of the Musicianship Demo for parents, guardians, and family members. Thank goodness we were all together and inside when the tornado touched down, and luckily very few of the buildings were damaged; most of the damage that the campus experienced were downed trees. The tornado certainly rattled our nerves, and yet the community came together to support one another during this time. We were grateful that nobody on campus or in the Walden or Dublin communities was injured, and all of us were grateful for how Dublin School responded to make sure the Walden community was safe. The David Hogan memorial tree that had been planted on the quad nearly 20 years ago was destroyed during the tornado, and we’ll be working with Dublin School to replace that tree.

A parent of two 2023 Young Musicians Program students writes: “Rarely a day goes by without my children rehashing how much fun they had at Walden last summer. I can’t thank you and the entire Walden community enough for making it possible for them to be a part of what I believe has been a life-changing experience. They’re discovering their own inner musical voices. It’s as if a spark has been lit in them.”

We hope to see you (or your student or cousin or neighbor or child) at Walden 2024, for which applications are now open. We can’t wait to light more sparks and help more eager Walden students find their musical voices!


Reflecting on the 2023 Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR)

Reflecting on the 2023 Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR)

Carrie MalloneeFrom Caroline Mallonee, Director of CMR

The Walden School held another successful Creative Musicians Retreat this year. We were thrilled to return to Brewster Academy, whose stunning buildings in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, overlook Lake Winnipesaukee. Almost 40 participants between 19 and 89 years old enrolled in the retreat and joined together to form a warm community.

We performed music by Pauline Oliveros indoors and out, and we sang every day in the boathouse under the direction of Thomas Colohan. We heard 37 world premieres on Composers Forums, which were moderated by the amazingly talented and generous Amy Beth Kirsten. Our curriculum was as robust as ever (thanks to D. J. Sparr, Osnat Netzer, Renée Favand-See, Sam Pluta, and Alex Christie), and included pedagogy and musicianship classes, seminars on contemporary topics, and four different electronic music classes. There was more chamber music at CMR than ever, including music by György Kurtág and Igor Stravinsky, as well as faculty members Sam Pluta and Caroline Mallonee and past Walden composer-in-residence George Lewis.

Above: The amazing 2023 CMR faculty and staff
Above: The amazing 2023 CMR faculty and staff
Chorus in the boathouse with Thomas Colohan
Chorus in the boathouse with Thomas Colohan
A Composers Forum moderated by Amy Beth Kirsten and Caroline Mallonee
A Composers Forum moderated by Amy Beth Kirsten and Caroline Mallonee

We welcomed back veteran artists-in-residence David Friend (piano), Bonnie Whiting (percussion), and members of the International Contemporary Ensemble Josh Modney (violin) and Dan Lippel (guitar). And we were happy to welcome three members of the International Contemporary Ensemble to Walden for the first time: Rachel Beetz (flute), Jacqui Kerrod (harp), and Nicolee Kuester (horn). In addition to performing pieces on the Opening Concert and the Composers Forums, these incredible performers coached chamber groups, offered private lessons, and gave workshops. We were glad to have Teresa McCollough give two workshops on extended piano techniques. Participants even learned how to make their own “bows” for bowing inside the piano!

The 2023 CMR Artists-in-Residence
The 2023 CMR Artists-in-Residence

Some people said it was the best CMR ever! (Some people say this every year.) Director of Operations Sammi Stone and her amazing staff team (Francesca Hellerman, Luke Schroeder, Paul Zito, and Technical Director Ted Moore) ensured that everything ran smoothly. There were epic ping-pong matches, memorable fireside sing-alongs, and wacky and wonderful open mic performances.

We started CMR so that people of all ages could enjoy the unique musical community that Walden offers, and we are so happy to have realized that dream once again. I can’t wait for next year!

Renée Favand-See leads a Musicianship class
Renée Favand-See leads a Musicianship class
Students in an Electronic Music class
Students in an Electronic Music class

With best wishes,

Caroline Mallonee
Director, The Walden School Creative Musicians Retreat


Halloween in July

Happy Halloween. . . In October

From Kittie Cooper, Director of De(Composers) Forums

We asked Young Musicians Program (YMP) faculty member Kittie Cooper to tells us about Halloween in July, a beloved YMP tradition that she introduced six years ago:

Halloween in July is one of those beautiful days at Walden that bring out peak levels of wackiness in the community. It’s always a surprise when it’ll happen—some space is just decorated on campus for the students to discover. They then have the afternoon to come up with costumes while the offices are converted into a haunted house for students to trick-or-treat in later. The decorating is done secretly, under the cover of some complicated and blatantly fictional story that keeps the students away (this year, spiders had nested up in the offices and needed to be relocated).

Halloween in July is one of Walden’s more recent traditions—the first one was in 2016 and we’ve had one every year since (even 2020 when Walden was online). Some faculty and staff were talking about how we have winter holidays in July, and we were kidding around that we should have Halloween in July.

I really wanted it to happen though, because it sounded awesome and very summer-campy, so I kept bringing it up and asking people to help so we could make it happen. I convinced Sam Pluta to suggest Halloween as one of the musicianship frolic themes (which ended up being “Welcome to the Hallolympic Games” or some such), because then I knew we’d at least have some Halloween decorations to start with. People were honestly so trusting that year—I still can’t believe they just let us take over the offices and jumped right in to running around decorating things.

The rooms of the haunted house change every year, and are always a mix of spooky, scary, funny, nerdy, and just plain beautiful. This year two rooms that were on the particularly beautiful side of things were the hidden room of rainbows and unicorns (and other glittery, happy things curated by Rebekah Griffin Greene), and the room of 12-tone solfege bots (where Francesca Hellerman made a Max patch that randomly generated tone rows for the students to solfege). We also had a jump scare hallway with a bunch of DIY synths and lights (thanks to Alex Christie), and a room of planned obsolescence (featuring antiquated Walden merch and technology, dreamed up by Theo Trevisan), and there were many more stand-outs that I’d love to list but then this would be too long! My favorite thing about Halloween is that it’s always a group effort, and you get to see people’s personalities and senses of humor coming out in their own unique ways—just through costumes and decorations. And the Walden students are of course extremely clever, so they come up with some really amazingly original (and spooky, and hilarious) stuff every year.

 

 

 


2017 Season Highlights

Transformative Programs

Walden’s 35th season at our wonderful host Dublin School celebrated another exciting season during campus construction of a new dorm, refurbished academic buildings, and a remodeled recital hall (with air-conditioning!) that Walden will be able to utilize in 2018.

  • Walden’s 45th Young Musicians Program brought creative, talented young composers from 12 states and 4 countries to Dublin. These students spent five life-changing weeks working with incredible faculty, top-notch artists and ensembles, and guest Composer-in-Residence, Robert Kyr.
  • At the 2017 Creative Musicians Retreat in June, our adult participants, ranging in age from 19 to 79, joined us for another immersive week of composing and learning from renowned faculty, guest ensembles, and Composer-in-Residence, Annie Gosfield.

 


 

Award-winning Concert Series

Walden’s Concert Series and artist presentations were again offered completely free and open to the public throughout seven weeks this summer. More than 20 events were presented during June-August.

  • Guest artists Mivos String Quartet, percussionist Matthew Gold, pianist Steve Beck, violinist Josh Modney, reed quintet Splinter Reeds, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Ryan Ross Smith, The Walden School Players, and Aurora Nealand & the Royal Roses performed.
  • Walden’s annual choral concert, featuring Walden students, faculty, and community members, closed out the concert series on a high note at All Saints’ Church in Peterborough.
  • Splinter Reeds, which premiered 7 new works by Walden faculty members, also played programs for Community Connections partners Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center and Keene Public Library.
  • Collaborative Partnerships: A key component of Walden’s success is its partnerships with renowned organizations.
  • PRISM Quartet – Continuing Walden’s 25-year partnership with this outstanding ensemble, Walden alumnus Reiny Rolock’s piece was premiered at concerts in Philadelphia and New York.
  • Boston Philharmonic Young Composers Initiative – A reading and recording of six compositions featured a new work by Walden student Francesca Hellerman, performed by the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. Walden faculty members Osnat Netzer and Evan Williams served on the discussion panel with other Boston-area university and conservatory faculty.
  • The MacDowell Colony – Walden continued its decades-long association with its annual visit to this preeminent artist colony. Students heard from two of this summer’s MacDowell Fellow composers, Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw and Walden’s own Sam Pluta, Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Chicago.
  • International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) – ICE returned for a third consecutive summer to perform new works by Walden students, as well as a world premiere by Walden faculty member Eliza Brown.
  • Ensemble Dal Niente – Continuing Walden’s success in attracting ensembles to perform Walden student and alumni compositions, Dal Niente has commissioned a piece by Walden student Ruby Landau-Pincus.
  • Connecting the Walden/JCC Community: We gathered during the year to celebrate & support our musical community.
  • In December and January, six Walden holiday parties were held in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
  • Walden presented an Alumni Composers Forum in San Francisco in January that featured 7 pieces by alumni from all over the U.S., moderated by Walden faculty Emil Margolis and Alex Ness and featuring Wild Rumpus.
  • We celebrated Walden with fundraisers (and friend-raisers!) in Washington, D.C., in March, Boston, New York, and San Francisco in May, and Dublin in August. These events helped raise more than $30,000 for Walden’s programs! The events featured world-class performances by Walden alumnus Cyrus Chestnut, Jesse Mills & Rieko Aizawa, Austin Wulliman, Jennifer Kloetzel, and Walden alumna Hilary Kole.

Alumni Composers Forum - San Francisco

wild rumpus
Join us!
Featuring Wild Rumpus (with alumna Sophie Huet), moderated by alumnus/faculty member Emil Margolis. Location: Holy Innocents Episcopal Church.
Walden program alumni (any program/any age) may submit works to scores@waldenschool.org by Monday, December 12. Pieces scored for a combination of piano, double bass, cello, clarinet, flute, conductor will be considered for performance by Wild Rumpus. Composers may also submit scores for pieces to be presented by other performers arranged for by the composer.
Selected composers must be present in San Francisco at the event in order for work to be presented. Preference given to works not having been previously performed.

YMP ~ Composers Forum II

YMP compforumPerformances of works by Young Musicians Program (YMP) participants, with audience discussion moderated by program faculty.


CMR ~ Composers Forum I

Performances of works by Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR) participants, with audience discussion moderated by program faculty.

 


CMR ~ Composers Forum III

Performances of works by Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR) participants, with audience discussion moderated by program faculty.


CMR ~ Composers Forum II

Performances of works by Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR) participants, with audience discussion moderated by program faculty.