eNews: InterNetzo – March 2024

Message from Seth Brenzel, Executive Director

Dear Walden friends,

Spring has sprung, and I hope you are enjoying the blossoms and the longer days of sun!

As we prepare for another incredible summer of creative music-making, we are continuing our series of benefit concerts to raise funds for Walden’s 2024 season. This month, we enjoyed a wonderful celebration and fundraiser in New York City, featuring pianist Pedja Mužijević. And I invite you to save the date for an upcoming fundraiser on Sunday, May 5, in Washington, DC, from 3 to 5 pm.

The final, Spring deadline for our 2024 Young Musicians Program (YMP) and Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR) is Monday, April 1. See below for information about program dates and locations. We hope you will apply to join us!

Please read on for more news and updates from the Walden community. I hope our paths cross at a Walden event or program soon. Summer is coming!

Sincerely,

Seth Brenzel
Executive Director
415-587-8157

Apply for Walden 2024

The final application deadline for Walden’s 2024 programs is April 1.

The final application deadline for The Walden School Young Musicians Program (YMP) and Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR) is on Monday, April 1—and we’re not fooling when we say that we hope you’ll apply to make music at Walden this summer!

Walden’s 2024 programs:

• Creative Musicians Retreat: June 15 – June 23, 2024, Dublin School, Dublin, New Hampshire (for musicians ages 18-98)

• Young Musicians Program: June 29 – August 4, 2024, Dublin School, Dublin, New Hampshire (for pre-college musicians, ages 9-18)

To be considered in the spring admissions round, please submit your application by 11:59pm (Pacific Time) on Monday, April 1. Teacher recommendations for the Young Musicians Program can be submitted after the deadline. The non-refundable application fees for both programs may be paid up to a week after the deadline.

Application materials for both programs are available on our website.

Write to us at applicants@waldenschool.org or call the Walden office at (415) 587-8157 with any questions.

Write to us with any questions.

Apply Today

Fundraising Events

Event recap: A Walden School celebration and fundraiser in New York City

Thank you to all who joined us for The Walden School’s celebration and fundraiser in New York City on Saturday, March 16!

It was a wonderful evening of food, drink, conversation, and music held in the beautiful, art-filled Skylight Gallery at the Salmagundi Club in Greenwich Village. Pianist Pedja Mužijević, a former Walden faculty member and the Artistic Administrator of Baryshnikov Arts in New York, took us on a fascinating musical journey with his program “Homage to Mixtapes.”

We are so grateful to our host committee and all of our event donors for your generosity. With your help, we have raised more than $10,400—and counting! Thank you! Your support brings Walden 2024 that much closer.

If you would like to show your support to Walden, contributions are warmly appreciated at any time. You are welcome to donate online or send a check to The Walden School at 7 Joost Avenue, Suite 204, San Francisco, CA 94131.

Upcoming fundraising event

Washington, DC

Sunday, May 5

3 to 5 pm

Join us for an afternoon of music, community, and refreshments at the historic DACOR Bacon House in Washington, DC!

This reception and concert will celebrate Walden’s mission of inspiring artistic expression and personal growth through experiential music programs. Contributions to Walden’s Annual Fund will underwrite critical student scholarships and world-class artist residences at Walden’s 2024 summer programs.

For more information or to RSVP, email donors@waldenschool.org or call (415) 587-8157.

Walden is Hiring!

Join our summer team.

Walden is hiring for 2024 summer positions at our Young Musicians Program (YMP) in Dublin, New Hampshire. We are seeking new teammates to join our creative community, and we hope that you might help spread the word about these opportunities to your friends and colleagues.

The positions currently open are:

• Staff Member—Young Musicians Program (June–August 2024; Dublin, NH)

Please contact us with any questions and inquiries. All positions are open until filled.

Young Musicians Program (YMP) Online Information Sessions

Join us to learn more about the music camp that changes lives.

Do you know a student who writes songs or arranges music? Or a young improviser who wants to strengthen their musicianship and meet like-minded peers? Or a music teacher who might like to learn about Walden’s unique curriculum?

Join us at one of our online interactive information sessions, featuring presentations and Q&A with Walden’s Executive Director, Seth Brenzel, alongside YMP leadership, faculty, staff, and students.

All YMP Info Sessions are held on Zoom and begin at 7 pm Eastern / 4 pm Pacific.

These events are open to prospective students, music teachers, and anyone else who would like to learn about Walden’s flagship program for musicians ages 9 to 18.

Call for Memories and Photos

Attention alumni! We are renewing a call for treasured memories and photos from your time at Walden or the Junior Conservatory Camp (JCC), to be included in a 50th/70th-Anniversary memory book.

Please aim to keep your reflections to a maximum of 250 words.

Alumni are also invited to share up to five treasured photos with the community to be included in the memory book.

Please send your memories and photos to us at alumni@waldenschool.org. We look forward to hearing from you!

Photo courtesy of Jane Dugdale, showing Junior Conservatory Camp (JCC) students in the late 1950s

Community News

Cara Haxo’s compositions performed

YMP alumna and faculty member Cara Haxo (who will return on faculty at the 2024 Young Musicians Program) had multiple compositions performed this month, including several premieres. On March 9, the ensemble Synergy 78 premiered Haxo’s The Weft and Weave Between Us and the flute and clarinet version of her composition Ripple at the Music by Women Festival at the Mississippi University for Women. On March 16, Forward Motion performed Haxo’s A Few Figs from Thistles (originally commissioned by The Walden School as part of the 2021 Faculty Commissioning Project for Hub New Music) at the Ball State University Festival of New Music in Muncie, Indiana. And on March 22, Stories, Secrets, and Forgotten Wisdom for tenor saxophone was premiered by Andrew Hosler in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, as part of the Local 4 Music Fund concert series. Congratulations, Cara!

 

Recognition for Osnat Netzer’s Dot : Line : Sigh

Veteran CMR and YMP faculty member Osnat Netzer released her debut recording in February of this year, featuring performances of her compositions by Ensemble Dal Niente, Geoffrey Landman, Mivos Quartet, Eric Lamb, Michael Hall, Marianne Parker, and the ~Nois saxophone quartet. Osnat’s new release, Dot : Line : Sigh, was selected by Bandcamp Daily as one of the best contemporary classical releases in February 2024. Osnat spoke about her new release on the Relevant Tones podcast with Matthew Dosland, discussing how she chose compositions from her catalog for the album, and the common thread that connects them: “Though the pieces differ in musical language and aesthetics, they all share the tropes of a punctuated sustain (Dot-Line) and many forms of pitch bends, glissandi, and stylized portamenti (Sigh).” Congratulations, Osnat!

 

Nicole Mitchell at SF Jazz with Brandee Younger

Creative flautist, improviser, and YMP 2023 visiting composer Nicole Mitchell performed at SF Jazz on March 9-10, in a musical tribute to Alice Coltrane led by jazz harpist Brandee Younger. Nicole joined Younger’s quartet as a special guest, along with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and a string ensemble led by De’Sean Jones. Nicole shared some audio and reflected on the performance in a social media post, which you can view here. We are grateful that Nicole is part of the Walden community!

 

Alicia Jo Rabins announces Girls in Trouble: The Series 

YMP Alumna Alicia Jo Rabins is a musician, poet, Torah teacher, and the creator of Girls in Trouble, a project which explores the complex stories of women in the Bible through music, visual art, and a Torah teaching curriculum created by Alicia. This year, Alicia is collaborating with filmmaker Alicia J. Rose to create Girls in Trouble: The Series. In each episode of this new web series, Rabins takes the viewer on a journey into a Biblical woman’s story and visits scholars and artists to get their take on the story. You can watch the pilot episode here.

 

Ruth Hertzman-Miller first-ever orchestra piece premiere

CMR alumna Ruth Hertzman-Miller is a physician, pianist, and composer. Ruth’s first-ever composition for orchestra, The Activity of Sound, was premiered by the Boston Conservatory Composers Orchestra on March 7. You can watch a video of the performance here. A hearty congratulations to Ruth on this achievement!

 

Eliza Brown’s music responds to climate change

A work by YMP alum and veteran faculty member Eliza Brown was performed as part of a climate change-inspired concert by the Juventas New Music Ensemble in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on March 23. Eliza’s work, In the Age of the Rise: Three Songs Imagining Life in the Age of Climate Change deals with both the immense grief and the glimmers of hope (through the power of collective action) that are contained within our possible climate futures. Eliza spoke about the work in a short video, which can be viewed here. The livestream of the March 23 concert is available for viewing here.

Updates from Anne Deane Berman

Anne Deane Berman, a Walden alumna and past board member, gave a talk in March at UCLA on her interactive immersive environments with her co-creator and spouse, Dr. Steve Berman. Together, they are planning to host their residential and nonresidential day STEM+ARTS+HUMANITIES Academies at Cornell University in July and UCLA in August. They brought a small Model United Nations high school delegation to Yale University in January and plan to go to Yale MUN LATAM in São Paulo in late summer.

We Want to Hear from You!