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 2024 Creative Musicians Retreat

Oscar Bettison, CMR 2024 Composer-in-Residence

Oscar Bettison’s music lives, thrillingly, on a razor’s edge between unpredictability and a groove wrought of full-bodied play. Born on the United Kingdom’s Channel Islands to Spanish and British parents, Bettison was fascinated from an early age by the interplay between the “weird, hazy, tenuous aural image” in his imagination and the wild effort to wrestle it onto the page. After studying in Amsterdam with Louis Andriessen and Martijn Padding, he learned to embrace this creative discomfort, crashing through challenges with fantastic, imaginative twists. As Bettison has said: “It’s not that refinement is a bad thing. But there are times when it can get in the way.” Watershed ensemble works like O Death and B&E (with aggravated assault) drew attention from press and audiences for their free-spirited play and integration of popular musical styles. Bettison was recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017. Bettison continues to find inspiration in experimenting with different forms of music, composing more for orchestra in recent years: Remaking a Forest for Oregon Symphony premiered in 2019, Pale Icons of Night—his first violin concerto—for Courtney Orlando and Alarm Will Sound debuted in 2018, and Lights in Ashes (an orchestral reimagination of a movement from O Death) was premiered by the New World Symphony in 2017. Bettison’s first opera, The Light of Lesser Days premiered in September 2021 in the Netherlands with the Asko|Schönberg ensemble. Bettison currently lives in New Jersey and is a Professor of Composition at John Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute.

David Friend, piano

David Friend is taking piano performance in new directions. As chamber musician, soloist, and in interdisciplinary projects, his performances have been hailed as “astonishingly compelling” (Washington Post), and he won a Grammy Award in 2017. He has performed at major venues around the world including Carnegie Hall, Royal Festival Hall (London), and the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing). As a soloist, David Friend is noted for charismatic performances and thoughtful programming. Through compelling solo programs and meaningful audience engagement, he brings a twenty-first century approach to the nineteenth-century piano recital format.


Members of the International Contemporary Ensemble are in Residence at CMR 2024

About International Contemporary Ensemble

Described as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), International Contemporary Ensemble has become a leading force in new music throughout the last 20 years, having premiered over 1,000 works and having been a vehicle for the workshop and performance of thousands of works by student composers across the U.S. The Ensemble’s composer-collaborators—many who were unknown at the time of their first Ensemble collaboration—have fundamentally shaped its creative ethos and have continued to highly visible and influential careers, including MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey; long-time Ensemble collaborator, founding member, and 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winner Du Yun; and the Ensemble’s founder, 2012 MacArthur Fellow, and first-ever flutist to win Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Prize, Claire Chase.

International Contemporary Ensemble members in residence at CMR 2024 include:

Isabel Lepanto-Gleicher (flute)

Dan Lippel (guitar)

Nicolee Kuester (horn)

Josh Modney (violin)

Damian Norfleet (vocalist)

Amy Garapic (percussion)


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.

More Visiting Artists

Summer 2024

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