Message from Seth Brenzel,
Executive Director

Dear Walden friends,

Walden 2025 is underway! A week ago, we said goodbye to our Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR) participants, who spent eight wonderful days at Walden composing and performing, sharing ideas and inspiration, and furthering their development as teachers, composers, and creative musicians. On Saturday, we welcomed our Young Musicians Program (YMP) students, who are just beginning their 5-week (or in a few cases, their 3-week) summer experience immersed in musical creativity and fun.

Both Walden programs are held on the beautiful Dublin School campus in Dublin, New Hampshire, where our award-winning Concert Series series continues this week. On Friday, July 4, in collaboration with the Monadnock Folklore Society, we present Walden’s much-loved and now-annual concert of New Orleans jazz by Aurora Nealand and friends. Read on for more information, and visit our website to see all of our upcoming concerts!

This edition of InterNetzo also features upcoming fundraising events, a roster of our amazingly talented faculty and staff teams, and some very cool community news—including a Walden alum at the top of the pop-music charts.

Summer is here! I wish you the best for a wonderful season, and I hope to see you soon at one of Walden’s many upcoming events!

Sincerely,

Seth Brenzel
Executive Director
(603) 563-8212

Upcoming Fundraising Events

Giving Day is Monday, July 28

Join us online for Giving Day! Throughout the first day of Festival Week, we’ll be sharing live video updates from our Young Musicians Program (YMP) as part of a special fundraiser on Walden’s Facebook page. Help us raise $5,300 in honor of Walden’s 53rd summer.

Livestream events will include meals, classes, interviews with students, faculty, and visiting artists, a rehearsal of a student composition, and the first 2025 YMP Festival Week Composers Forum.

This is a great time to make your first donation to Walden, or to increase or supplement your annual gift. Your donation of any amount helps ensure that Walden continues to offer an immersive creative community for many more seasons to come.

A New Hampshire celebration and fundraiser on Saturday, August 2

You’re invited to a fabulous Festival Week celebration to cap off Walden’s 2025 Young Musicians Program! Join us to celebrate the impact of Walden’s transformative music programs and to raise funds for student scholarships and inspiring artist residencies. Guests will enjoy a musical performance followed by a reception with refreshments and Walden community.

While there is no charge to attend, gifts to support Walden’s award-winning programs may be made online, by check payable to The Walden School at P.O. Box 432, Dublin, NH 03444, or in person at the event.

For details or to RSVP, contact Noah Mlotek, Walden’s Director of Development and Alumni Relations, by email or by calling (603) 563-8212.

Support Walden Today

Upcoming Concerts

Walden’s 2025 Concert Series continues with multiple events each week, all free of charge and open to the public. Additionally, most concerts are livestreamed on Walden’s YouTube channel. Visit our website for a complete listing of Walden’s 2025 Concert Series, including livestream links.

Tuesday, July 1, 7:30 pm Eastern

Young Musicians Program (YMP) Composers Forum I

In the Louise Shonk Kelly Recital Hall, Dublin School, Dublin, New Hampshire

During Composers Forums, YMP students present their improvisational or compositional works in a concert setting. These new works are performed by students, faculty, and visiting artists and then discussed with forum moderators and the audience.

Watch the livestream: YMP Composers Forum I

Friday, July 4, 7:30 pm Eastern

Aurora Nealand and Friends

On the Fountain Arts Building patio, Dublin School, Dublin, New Hampshire

Join us for a special evening of traditional New Orleans jazz at Walden! This annual outdoor performance, proudly co-presented with the Monadnock Folklore Society, is a beloved tradition of the Walden and Dublin communities. Aurora Nealand is a sound artist and multi-instrumentalist (saxophones, accordion, voice) based in New Orleans, Louisiana. An established bandleader, composer, performer and improviser, and a former Walden faculty member, Nealand has become a prominent force in the New Orleans music scene since she first arrived in 2004.

This outdoor concert will not be livestreamed.

Summer 2025 Faculty and Staff

Each summer, Walden assembles an accomplished and well-rounded team of faculty and staff to mentor and inspire our students. Our philosophy is that by participating together in all levels of community life, faculty, staff, visiting artists, and students can create an environment where creativity flourishes and mentorship abounds.

Walden’s 2025 faculty and staff team is a wonderful mix of returning team members, team

members returning in new roles, and several new staff and faculty members. Walden’s faculty are a diverse mix of improvisers, composers, conductors, performers, and music scholars, all of whom are committed to the creation and dissemination of new music and to developing the next generation’s composers, performers, arts leaders, and more.

Visit our website to learn more about our faculty and staff at the Young Musicians Program (YMP) and Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR).

CMR Faculty and Staff

Seth Brenzel, Executive Director
Jeff Dutter, Staff
Renée Favand-See, Faculty
Francesca Hellerman, Staff
Caroline Mallonee, Faculty & CMR Program Director
Osnat Netzer, Faculty
Loretta Notareschi, Faculty
Sam Pluta, Faculty
Dahlia Riddington, Staff
Sarah Riskind, Faculty & Choral Director
Rodier, Technical Director
D. J. Sparr, Faculty
Sammi Jo Stone, Director of Operations

YMP Faculty and Staff

Zaki Andoh, Staff & Faculty
William Bolles-Beaven, Faculty
Seth Brenzel, Executive Director & YMP Program Director
Kittie Cooper, Teaching Mentor & Director of Electronic Music
Olga DiMeglio, Nurse
Shannon Dunning, Staff
Brian Fancher, Staff & Assistant Choral Director
Kari Francis, Faculty & Choral Director
Aidan Gold, Faculty
Cara Haxo, Faculty & Academic Dean
Francesca Hellerman, Faculty & Director of Composers Forums
Douglas Hertz, Teaching Mentor
Ashlin Hunter, Faculty
Lukáš Janata, Faculty & Academic Dean
Camara Kambon, Faculty
Veronica Kao, Faculty
Cadence Manuel, Staff
Tara McGovern, Staff
Loretta Notareschi, Teaching Mentor
Carlos Henrique Pereira, Faculty
Rodier, Technical Director
Luke Schroeder, Faculty & Staff
Sammi Jo Stone, Faculty & Director of Operations
Carolyn Tilton, Nurse
Theo Trevisan, Faculty
Nate Trier, Faculty & Academic Dean
Paul Zito, Staff & Faculty

Community News

Luka Kloser produces Addison Rae’s debut album

Young Musicians Program (YMP) alumna Luka Kloser co-wrote and produced all 12 tracks on Addison Rae’s new album Addison, including the hit single Diet Pepsi. As Rae told Rolling Stone in January, she met Luka and Elvira Anderfjärd—both songwriter/producer protégées of famed producer Max Martin—in early 2024, and the three wrote the hook of Diet Pepsi together that same day. Luka can be heard on keyboards and background vocals in all but two tracks, and she and Anderfjärd are the album’s sole producers. Addison was reviewed positively, described as “sensual and heady, propelled by private intensity, occasionally euphoric” by Pitchfork, and debuted at number 4 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Walden composers honored by Morton Gould Young Composer awards

On June 18, the ASCAP Foundation announced the winners of the 2025 Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, which encourage young creators of concert music ages 13 to 30. Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR) alumnus Nathaniel Parks won a cash prize, while former YMP faculty member Lila Meretzky and YMP alumnus Max Chung received honorable mentions. The juried national competition is named in honor of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Morton Gould for his lifelong commitment to encouraging young creators. Congratulations, Nathaniel, Lila, and Max!

Lila Meretzky also has a new album out on Sawyer Records, entitled Simultaneous Contrast, featuring five of her recent compositions.

Kari Francis finishes doctorate and starts position at Bowdoin

Kari Francis, choral director and faculty member at YMP, recently received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Notre Dame in choral conducting and was appointed Director of Choral Activities at Bowdoin College. In the photo at left, Carrie is hooded by her doctoral advisor, the composer John Liberatore. Kari’s work centers living and historically underrepresented voices through improvisation, contemporary a cappella styles, and learner-focused pedagogies, and she is a composer-in-residence at St. Matthew Catholic Church in Detroit, Michigan. Congratulations, Kari!

Juantio Becenti wins Thea Musgrave Performer-Composer Collaboration Grant

Composer Juantio Becenti, a YMP alumnus, received the inaugural Thea Musgrave Performer-Composer Collaboration Grant along with cellist Zachary Mowitz, who will commission a new work by Becenti for his ensemble Nodality Music. The grant, newly endowed by composer Thea Musgrave, distributes $10,000 annually to performers commissioning an emerging composer with the aim of supporting rich collaborations. Juantio’s piece will address the environmental injustices faced by his Diné (Navajo) community, with a special focus on land justice and clean-water access.

Hub New Music releases album

Hub New Music, the ensemble-in-residence for Walden’s Faculty Commissioning Concert at YMP in 2021, released its sixth studio album, What If We’re Beautiful, on June 27. The ensemble’s longtime collaborator Daniel Thomas Davis’s piece shares a name with the album and features five movements, each framed as a musical gift bearing the initials of a member of the composer’s chosen family. The album, a “resounding celebration of queer joy,” is accompanied by a dance-film made by Four/Ten Media and Mark Morris Dance Group alums Aaron Loux and Brian Lawson.

Walden alumni featured in Oakland concert

The Glenview Classical Series will present a concert of New Music by Local Composers in Oakland, California, on Sunday, July 6, at 4 pm at St. Paul Lutheran Church. Two Walden alumni will have works performed: Emil Margolis, a YMP alumnus and former faculty member, and Junior Conservatory Camp (JCC) alumna Mary Fineman, featuring her first string quartet, January. All kids age 13 and under can attend for free!

Dasom Chung graduates and starts job in forensic musicology

Dasom Chung (at center in photo), a YMP alumna and former staff member, recently graduated from Berklee College of Music with a Professional Music Degree (magna cum laude) with minors in music technology and musical theater performance. At Berklee, she was involved in several Kpop-related projects and was a core member of Berklee’s very first Kpop idol group, Xchange. Dasom recently started a job as Head of Operations for Joe Bennett Music Services, a renowned forensic musicology team, where she works to analyze, research, and apply musical expertise to legal matters involving music. She also works as a lifeguard and stays involved in dancing, having recently performed at Fenway Park for a Boston Red Sox AAPI event, and is an active member of the Boston Kpop dance team MODU.

Congratulations, Dasom, and thanks for the udpates!

Walden artists perform at Oakland’s Garden of Memory

Several Walden-affiliated musicians performed on June 21 as part of Garden of Memory, a summer solstice concert featuring dozens of Bay Area experimental music performers and improvisers. The artists included CMR alumnus (and parent of a YMP alum) Joel St. Julien (pictured at right) and past Walden visiting artists Rachel Beetz and Pamela Z. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “a walk-through fun house of musical and visual splendor,” the concert is held annually in the beautiful Chapel of the Chimes, a mausoleum and historic landmark in Oakland, California.

We Want To Hear From You!

If you have a recent or upcoming premiere or concert, publication, award, new job, or a celebratory life event, please share your news, which needn’t be music-related (although we love your music-related news to be sure!). Email your news to alumni@waldenschool.org.

Stay in Touch

You can like The Walden School page on Facebook and join The Walden School private group to hear about events and opportunities throughout the year. You can also find us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, bandcamp, and at waldenschool.org.

Students at Walden’s Young Musicians Program (YMP)