Concerts and residencies bring artists of the
highest caliber to The Walden School
Artists in residence at The Walden School Creative Musicians Retreat have included members of International Contemporary Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, Mivos Quartet, Carlos Cordeiro, David Friend, Matthew Gold, Kyle Flens, Eric Huebner, Steve Beck, Teresa McCollough, Phyllis Chen, and Julia Bruskin and Aaron Wunsch. Recent Composers-in-Residence have included Marcos Balter, Lisa Bielawa, Annie Gosfield, George Lewis, Lei Liang, and Christopher Theofanidis.
Visiting Artists at Walden’s 2025 Creative Musicians Retreat
Paula Matthusen, CMR 2025 Composer-in-Residence
Paula Matthusen is a composer who writes both electroacoustic and acoustic music and realizes sound installations. In addition to composing for a variety of different ensembles, she also collaborates with choreographers and theater companies. She has written for diverse instrumentations, such as “run-on sentence of the pavement” for piano, ping-pong balls, and electronics, which Alex Ross of The New Yorker noted as being “entrancing”. Her work often considers discrepancies in musical space—real, imagined, and remembered. Recent areas of creative inquiry include extensive field recording, which has led to compositions and sound projects in aqueducts, caves, and sites of historic infrastructure. Matthusen is currently Professor of Music at Wesleyan University, where she teaches experimental music, composition, and music technology, and founded the Toneburst Laptop and Electronic Arts Ensemble.
Read more about Paula and her work on her website.
David Friend, piano
The New York Times describes David Friend as “[one] of the finest, busiest pianists active in New York’s contemporary-classical scene.” With a primary focus on new and experimental music, he has performed at major venues in the U.S. and abroad including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Disney Hall, Royal Festival Hall (London), Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid), the Chan Centre (Vancouver), and the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing). He has also performed extensively in alternative, underground, and DIY venues. He has recorded for the New Amsterdam, Harmonia Mundi, Albany, Cedille, Dacapo, Innova, a wave press, and New World labels, and his playing has been heard on radio stations across the country, including on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, WQXR’s Hammered!, and WNYC’s New Sounds. He records frequently with a wide variety of collaborators and is featured on Third Coast Percussion’s album of music by Steve Reich, which won the Grammy Award for best chamber music performance. His most recent recording, Post-, is an electroacoustic reimagining of what solo piano music can be in the 21st century, and was released on the New Amsterdam label in March 2021. More info at davidfriendpiano.net.
Stay tuned for more announcements of artists-in-residence at the Creative Musicians Retreat 2025.
Concerts and residencies bring artists of the highest caliber to The Walden School.
Through the performance of diverse music, guest artists play an active role in helping stimulate students’ creativity. Guest performers have included The Alexander String Quartet, Phyllis Bryn-Julson, Calliope Duo, Cyrus Chestnut, Clogs, Cross Country, Del Sol String Quartet, Bryce Dessner, Fantasy Duo, Thomas Hecht, Julian Martin, Teresa McCollough, The New Millenium Ensemble, Odd Appetite, Judith Panill, The Peabody Trio, The Phoenix Chamber Orchestra, The PRISM Saxophone Quartet, Claudia Stevens, and Robert Weirich.
Summer 2025
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