eNews: InterNetzo – May 2024

Message from Seth Brenzel, Executive Director

Dear Walden friends,

I enjoyed seeing many of you in March for our celebration and fundraiser in New York, and I look forward to seeing more of you this weekend in Washington, DC. Read on for details about a wonderful Walden event planned for Sunday, May 5, and join us as we build excitement and raise funds for another summer of extraordinary music programs. I hope to see you there!

In this edition of InterNetzo, we are pleased to share the full lineup of our Summer 2024 Concert Series. All of our events are free and open to the public, as well as livestreamed for a global audience. Wherever you are, I hope you’ll join us for some inspiring performances this summer!

I also want to draw your attention to a part-time job opening on our year-round administrative team in San Francisco. We are seeking a Development Assistant to support Walden’s fundraising efforts while gaining valuable experience in the field of nonprofit development. If you or someone you know might be interested in this position, please be in touch!

Please read on for more news and updates from the Walden community. I hope our paths cross at a Walden event or program soon. Our 2024 Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR) begins on June 15, and our Young Musicians Program (YMP) starts on June 29. Summer is right around the corner!

Sincerely,

Seth Brenzel
Executive Director
415-587-8157

Upcoming Fundraising Events

Join us on Sunday, May 5, for a Walden celebration in Washington, DC!

Washington, DC

Sunday, May 5

3 to 5 pm

Join The Walden School for an afternoon of music, community, and refreshments at the historic DACOR Bacon House, an elegant mansion and foreign-affairs club located near the White House. Guests will enjoy a performance by the Claremont Trio, lauded as “one of America’s finest young chamber groups” (Strad Magazine), who will perform works by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Johannes Brahms, and Kati Agócs (a former Walden Composer-in-Residence).

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 details or to RSVP, contact us or call (415) 587-8157.

Summer 2024 Concert Series

Each summer, Walden’s award-winning Concert Series presents leading professional musicians and ensembles on concerts that are offered free of charge to the public and webcast through high-quality livestreams.

Visiting artists and Composers-in-Residence are integral to Walden’s programs, leading workshops, demonstrations, and dialogues that challenge and inspire Walden students. During Composers Forums, student improvisations and compositions are performed by faculty, students, and visiting artists.

Across eight concerts, eleven Composers Forums, and two composer presentations, the 2024 Walden School Concert Series will feature cutting-edge works from artists of diverse contemporary musical genres. In a typical summer, Walden will present nearly 200 world premieres created by our students and faculty—approximately 140 by Young Musicians Program (YMP) students, 40 works by Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR) participants, and 10 pieces commissioned from Walden’s YMP faculty.

We hope you will join us—whether in person or virtually—for a season of dynamic performances, creative collaborations, and diverse new musical voices.

Time: 7:30 pm

Location: Louise Shonk Kelly Recital Hall on the Dublin School campus in Dublin, New Hampshire (unless otherwise noted)

Admission: Always free and open to the public

Saturday, June 15

Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR) artists-in-residence David Friend and members of International Contemporary Ensemble performing music by Walden faculty members and CMR Composer-in-Residence Oscar Bettison

Thursday, June 20

CMR participants and visiting artists presenting a curated selection of chamber music

Sunday, June 30

ZOFO piano duet—Eva-Maria Zimmerman and Keisuke Nakagoshi (pictured at right)—presenting repertoire for piano four-hands on Walden’s recently donated Steinway

Friday, July 5

Aurora Nealand and friends, presenting a popular outdoor concert of New Orleans jazz on the Fountain Arts Building patio—co-presented with the Monadnock Folklore Society

Friday, July 12

Faculty Commissioning Concert with Friction Quartet (pictured at right), premiering new works by Young Musicians Program (YMP) faculty members

Friday, July 19

International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), described by the New York Times as “one of the most accomplished and adventurous groups in new music”

Friday, July 26

The Walden School Players, featuring innovative performers Laura Cocks (flute), Erica Dicker (violin), Kyra Sims (horn), Chris Wild (cello), Mabel Kwan (piano), Dennis K. Sullivan II (percussion), and Zachary Good (clarinet) performing contemporary music including works by Sarah Kirkland Snider, 2024 YMP Composer-in-Residence

Friday, August 2

The Walden School Choral Concert, showcasing the entire YMP community under the direction of choral director Kari Francis

COMPOSER PRESENTATIONS

Sunday, June 16

Oscar Bettison, CMR Composer-in-Residence

Sunday, July 28

Sarah Kirkland Snider, YMP Composer-in-Residence

COMPOSERS FORUMS

Creative Musicians Retreat Composers Forums

Tuesday, June 18; Wednesday, June 19; and Friday, June 21

Featuring newly composed/improvised works by CMR participants

Young Musicians Program Composers Forums

Each Tuesday in July: 2, 9, 16, 23, as well as Thursday, July 18

Monday–Wednesday, July 29–31 (Festival Week Composers Forums)

Featuring newly composed/improvised works by YMP participants

Walden is Hiring!

Join our year-round administrative team in San Francisco.

Walden is hiring for a Development Assistant to join our dynamic, fun, and collegial San Francisco-based administrative team. The part-time Development Assistant will play a crucial role in supporting Walden’s fundraising efforts. This position offers an exciting opportunity to contribute to Walden’s growth and sustainability while gaining valuable experience in the field of nonprofit development.

Please help us spread the word about this exciting opportunity! View the full job description here.

Please direct any questions and inquiries to us at jobs@waldenschool.org.

Photo: The Walden School administrative office in San Francisco

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.

Do you have memories and photos to send? Contact us: waldenschool.org/contact. We look forward to hearing from you!

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

Community News

Katie Balch performed by SF Contemporary Music Players

Katherine Balch’s Musica Spolia was performed on April 20 by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players as part of the Pierrot RE:Wind festival. The festival celebrates Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, featuring new and existing works for the “Pierrot” ensemble of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. Musica Spolia was performed alongside pieces by Kevin Day, Massimo Lauricella, Andrew Norman, and Mason Bates. A past Young Musicians Program (YMP) faculty member, Balch currently teaches composition at Yale School of Music.

D. J. Sparr’s harp concerto premiered in Nashua alongside music by New Hampshire students

On April 20 in Nashua, New Hampshire, Symphony New Hampshire gave the premiere performance of Extraordinary Motion: Concerto for Electric Harp by composer D. J. Sparr and poet Janine Joseph. D. J. is a YMP alumnus, a past YMP faculty member, and a current CMR faculty member. Also premiered on the April 20 program was a new collaborative work created as part of New Hampshire Concerto, a project that commissions college composers to submit short movements for orchestra that exemplify or represent New Hampshire. Music composed by four New Hampshire students, from University of New Hampshire, Dartmouth, Plymouth State, and Keene State, made up the finished work.

Sky Macklay featured with portrait concert at WoCo Fest

Composer Sky Macklay, a former YMP faculty member, former CMR faculty and staff member, and Teacher Training Institute (TTI) alumna, was featured in a portrait concert on April 13 at Strathmore in Bethesda, Maryland. The concert was presented by Ghost Ensemble, in which Macklay performs as oboist, as part of WoCo Fest 2024, a three-day festival celebrating music by women and gender-marginalized composers, produced by the Boulanger Initiative. Five of Macklay’s compositions were performed, alongside an installation of her Harmonitrees, a unique set of interactive, inflatable harmonica-playing sculptures. Sky is on the composition faculty of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.

Bob Bassett work performed by Federal Way Symphony

Bob Bassett’s string orchestra work Lodore received a Pacific Northwest premiere on April 14 by the Federal Way Symphony, based outside of Seattle, Washington. Bassett is a CMR alumnus and member of Walden’s Board of Directors. He was also featured on a podcast speaking about the work and his path as a composer with conductor Adam Stern. Congratulations on your premiere, Bob!

New Arrangement of Stacy Garrop’s Tribute to Justice Ginsburg

YMP alumna and past faculty member Stacy Garrop was commissioned by Jane and James Ginsburg, the children of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to compose My Dearest Ruth for the Justice’s 80th birthday tribute in 2013. Garrop’s work is a setting of the last letter written to Ruth Bader Ginsburg by her husband, Martin Ginsburg. Last year, the Bay area vocal ensemble 21V commissioned Garrop to create a version for soprano and alto voices. The new adaptation of My Dearest Ruth was performed by 21V on April 5-6, 2024 in Berkeley and San Francisco.

Theo Trevisan presents master’s recital

Theo Trevisan, a YMP and CMR alumnus and current YMP faculty member, presented his composition master’s recital at the University of Southern California on April 6. Theo performed as bass-baritone in the concert alongside many other performers, including Walden alumni Daniel Montes de Oca Tellez (YMP) and Hannah Rice (CMR). CMR alumna Ashlin Hunter helped with tech. The program for the recital can be viewed here.

Zach Layton performs live sci-fi film score in Albany, New York

On April 20, CMR alumnus and 17-string bassist Zach Layton and collaborators Geoff Gersh (electric guitar) and Bradford Reed (drums and pencilina) performed a live film score for the 1973 French sci-fi film Fantastic Planet at The Linda in Albany, New York. Together, as Order of the Illusive, Layton, Gersh, and Reed have performed accompaniment for other silent films at the same venue, including Nosferatu, F.W. Murnau’s Faust, and Metropolis. On April 21, Layton performed a new work for amplified piano, drums, and 17-string bass with Hamir Atwal and Phyllis Chen (a past Walden visiting artist who will return to Walden in 2024) in Kingston, New York. Check out more of Zach’s upcoming concerts and collaborations in New York State on his website.

Lukáš Janata cantata to be premiered in New York

CMR alumnus and YMP faculty member Lukáš Janata was commissioned by the Chorus American award-winning Cantori New York to write a new cantata. But Love Is Stronger, a 50-minute work for mixed choir, countertenor, clarinet, string quartet, and percussion, will be premiered on May 18 and 19 at the Church of the Holy Apostles in New York City. Janata describes the work as “a testament to the indomitable power of love to transcend even the darkest of circumstances, offering solace, healing, and the promise of renewal,” set to poems by Lord Byron, Emily Brontë, Christina Rossetti, and e.e. cummings. Lukáš recently completed a three-month Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Artist Residency in Taos, New Mexico, as part of a cohort of 11 cross-disciplinary artists.

PRISM Quartet to premiere new body of work

PRISM Quartet, the acclaimed saxophone ensemble and Walden School collaborative partner, will present a new body of work entitled Generate Music, exploring the ties between Black and Jewish artists. World premiere concerts will take place on June 8 in Philadelphia and June 9 in New York, preceded by panel discussions on May 28 and 30 in Philadelphia. Five of the project’s commissioned composers are also musicians—clarinetist David Krakauer, violinist Diane Monroe, poet/vocalist Ursula Rucker, drummer Tyshawn Sorey, and trumpeter/vocalist Susan Watts—who will join PRISM, guitarist David Gilmore, and bassist Reuben Rogers to form an all-star ensemble and perform each other’s works. The program includes additional commissions from Yotam Haber, Myra Melford (with poet Erica Hunt), and Fred Wesley. Project artists have previously collaborated with James Brown, Wayne Shorter, The Roots, Itzhak Perlman, The Klezmatics, and more. A trailer for the project can be viewed here.

We Want to Hear from You!