Message from Seth Brenzel, Executive Director

Dear Walden friends,

Happy Halloween! Fall is here, and another mind-bendingly fun and creative Walden summer has come and gone!

Our 2024 season officially came to an end on September 30 with the close of Walden’s fiscal year. We are so grateful to the more than 450 individuals, families, foundations, and corporations who contributed more than $396,000 to Walden’s 2024 Annual Fund! Your generosity allowed us to exceed our goal of raising $375,000 for the 2024 fiscal year, truly raising the bar for Walden’s Annual Fund, which we depend on year after year to make the Walden experience possible for generations of creative musicians.

We are especially grateful to donors who increased their contributions, or made first-time gifts to Walden, in response to our Summer 2024 Board Challenge. Walden’s Board of Directors generously offered to match every new and increased contribution—up to $15,000—that Walden raised during the summer. In response, our donors contributed more than $39,000 in new and increased contributions, including 18 first-time donors to Walden. Thank you, donors!

Walden’s 2024 season was an extraordinary team effort. From our tireless and visionary teachers and staff members to our phenomenal visiting artists and composers-in-residence and, of course, our talented students—who brought creativity, openness, and a collaborative spirit to each day at Walden—everyone in our community showed up to make this an unforgettable summer of growth and inspiration. Thank you to all who participated in our programs in 2024!

I hope you enjoy this edition of InterNetzo, which celebrates our recent fundraising events and features lots of exciting news and announcements from around the Walden community.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a spooky Halloween!

Sincerely,

Seth Brenzel
Executive Director
415-587-8157

Happy Halloween. . . in October!

One of our newer traditions at Walden’s Young Musicians Program (YMP) is Halloween in July—a spooktacular day featuring a DIY haunted house created by Walden staff and faculty with various creepy, fun, and music-nerdy rooms for students to go trick-or-treating. Here are some highlights from Halloween in July in 2024: the human claw machine, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, a sad clown watching Shrek, and a forum/form monster.

Read more about the origins of this tradition from Kittie Cooper, a faculty member and Director of (De)Composers Forums at YMP.

Upcoming Community Events

PRISM Quartet to premiere new saxophone quartet by Walden alumnus Aaron Nichols

Young Musicians Program (YMP) alumnus Aaron Nichols was selected last year as the winner of The Walden School/PRISM Quartet Student Commissioning Award, a longstanding partnership in which Walden and the PRISM Quartet collaborate to select a student composer, mentor that composer in completing their final score, and PRISM provides a world premiere performance experience.

PRISM will give the premiere performances of Aaron Nichols’s commissioned piece, Mesovortex, on November 17 in Philadelphia and November 18 in New York City, as part of a program titled “Machine.” Tickets are available on a pay-what-you-wish basis. We anticipate that there will be opportunities for Walden alumni and friends to gather after the concerts. Please write to us if you are interested in helping to organize a get-together in New York or Philadelphia!

Nichols describes the piece as “inspired by, and structured loosely around, timelapse footage of tornadogenesis. When sped up, one can clearly see the ordinary cloud formations caught in an inexorable, yet invisible pull towards themselves—one that is less obvious in real time. This process feels analogous to the unraveling of human emotions: normal events, aligned properly, can grind against one another, creating anger or fear out of virtually nothing. Musically, I feel the saxophone quartet’s capacity to melt into itself—to form more of a mercurial, polyphonic plasma than four distinct voices—will lend itself well to this concept.” Aaron is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in music composition at Oberlin Conservatory, studying under professors Stephen Hartke, Jesse Jones, Michael Frazier, and Soomin Kim.

Walden holiday parties

The holiday season is just around the corner! Walden community members will be gathering for holiday potlucks in cities throughout the country in December and January. Look for an email announcement of dates and cities soon, and if you are interested in hosting a party in your area or want to learn more in the meantime about these upcoming gatherings, please write to us at alumni@waldenschool.org. We are so grateful to the many volunteers who have hosted Walden holiday parties over the years.

Fundraising Events

A Walden Celebration and Fundraiser in San Francisco

Walden held a fabulous end-of-season celebration and fundraiser on Sunday, September 29, in the dazzling Green Room at San Francisco’s War Memorial. We are so grateful to our host committee and all our donors, who contributed more than $10,000 to Walden!

Friction Quartet (Otis Harriel, Kevin Rogers, Mitso Floor, and Doug Machiz) gave a masterful performance, featuring works from the Quartet’s 2024 Faculty Commissioning residency at Walden by Cara Haxo, Francesca Hellerman, and Theo Trevisan, as well as a composition written during this summer’s Young Musicians Program by student Henry Vidaver. Thanks to Friction for sharing these amazing works with our West Coast Walden friends!

We are grateful to Walden parent Juli Anna Johnson and board member Stephen Smith, who spoke movingly about Walden’s incredible impact and the importance of supporting our programs.

Thanks also to Stephen Smith and Cultivar Wine for arranging a donation of wine for the event, and to Carlos Henrique Pereira and MacRostie Winery for contributing some fabulous raffle prizes.

Giving Day

We shared a wonderful day at our Young Musicians Program (YMP) with friends and supporters near and far as part of Walden’s online Giving Day on Monday, July 29. Livestreams included classes and choral rehearsals, interviews with students, faculty, and members of The Walden School Players, a rehearsal of a student composition, and our first 2024 Festival Week Composers Forum. We hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did!

The videos from Giving Day will remain available here. You do not need a Facebook account to watch the videos.

Our goal was to raise $5,200 in honor of Walden’s 52nd summer. With your support, we raised $7,700—148% of our goal. Thank you!

A Walden Celebration and Fundraiser in New Hampshire

Walden hosted a wonderful end-of-summer celebration and fundraiser in Dublin and Harrisville, New Hampshire, on Saturday, August 3. The afternoon began with a sizzling performance by acclaimed vocalist Hilary Kole with pianist Misha Piatigorsky. Hilary and Misha were joined for one song by guitarist and composer Carlos Henrique Pereira, a faculty member at Walden’s Young Musicians Program (YMP) and a parent of two Walden students.

Hilary Kole is a Walden alumna who returned to Walden this summer as a YMP faculty member, an attendee at Walden’s Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR), and the parent of a first-time YMP student! As Hilary shared during her performance, “Walden is not the same” as it was when she attended as a student—“it’s better!” Thank you, Hilary, for your incredible performance and powerful reflections on Walden.

The celebration continued at the home of Ellen and Ed Bernard in nearby Harrisville. Thank you, Ellen and Ed, for hosting this event for the third year in a row! Thanks, also, to David Bivins, a Walden parent and a new member of Walden’s Board of Directors, who spoke movingly about Walden’s tremendous impact on his family. We are so grateful to our host committee and all our event donors for their generosity. With your help, we raised $28,500 through this event! Thank you!

Save the date—Saturday, March 8, 2025, in Baltimore!

We are thrilled to be returning to Baltimore for a fundraiser and celebration in the evening on Saturday, March 8, 2025. Please save the date and plan to join us!

Support Walden Today

Welcoming Ellie Murphy-Weise

Walden is excited to welcome Ellie Murphy-Weise as our new Development Assistant. Ellie will be working as a part-time member of Walden’s administrative team in our San Francisco office. Welcome, Ellie!

Ellie joins the Walden School following the completion of a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, where she investigated opera institutions, vocal pedagogy, and traditional music theatre in 18 countries around the world. She began singing with the San Francisco Girls Chorus at the age of ten and developed a taste for new music through performances with Kronos Quartet, The Knights, and Philip Glass. A mezzo-soprano and musicologist with a passion for contemporary opera, she has interned at km28 and the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin and conducted research at the University of Cape Town Opera School. Ellie studied music and international relations at Wellesley College and participated in the Young Artists Vocal Program at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. She has previously worked in development for the San Francisco Ballet, Tatsuya Daniel Orchestra, and the Merit School of Music, and has thoroughly enjoyed hearing student and faculty compositions created at Walden.

Competitions and Calls for Scores

Featured opportunities with upcoming deadlines

Walden encourages the sharing of opportunities and resources for composers, including competitions and calls for scores that may be of interest to our community. We maintain a searchable list of competitions, awards, and calls for scores on our website. Opportunities are often posted in Walden’s community Facebook group as well.

Here are some featured opportunities with upcoming deadlines:

Ballora-Wang Young Composer Award at Penn State

Students who are U.S. citizens and in high school (9th-12th grade) in 2024-25 are invited to submit works for any instrumentation, including acoustic ensembles and/or digital media. Selected composers will win $100 and a one-hour lesson with a member of the Composition and Technology faculty at Penn State. Apply by December 7, 2024.

International Clarinet Association (ICA) 2025 Composition Competitions

The ICA seeks newly composed works for solo B-flat or A clarinet and chamber compositions which include at least one member of the clarinet family. Selected composers will win $1,000 and a performance of their music at the 2025 ClarinetFest conference in Fort Worth, Texas. Apply by December 20, 2024.

San Francisco Choral Artists (SFCA) New Voices Project

The New Voices Project (NVP) is SFCA’s annual competition for composers under 30, aiming to encourage the next generation of composers to write music for a cappella chamber choir. The winner receives a cash prize, three performances of the winning work in June 2025, and a professional-quality recording.

Eligible composers are encouraged to submit new and creative a cappella choral works that suit the theme “Welcome to the Zoo! A Musical Menagerie.” Chosen texts must, in some way, deal with the theme of animals. Apply by February 1, 2025

Community News

Sky Macklay receives Serge Koussevitsky commission

Sky Macklay is one of eight composers awarded a 2024 Music Commission from the Serge Koussevitsky Foundation in the Library of Congress. Sky is a former faculty member at the Young Musicians Program (YMP), former staff at the Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR), and an alumna of both CMR and Walden’s Teacher Training Institute (TTI). Sky’s new commissioned work, Saxophone Hero, was premiered by Project Fusion Saxophone Quartet on September 22 in Washington, D.C. At the premiere, the audience interacted with the quartet and live electronics via a video game, which challenged the audience to execute increasingly complex rhythmic patterns, influencing the form of the piece in real time. Congratulations to Sky on this honor and a creative, ambitious premiere!

Molly Pindell’s Sage Farm Goat Dairy wins national cheese award

Molly Pindell, former Director of Operations at Walden and a past member of Walden’s Board of Directors, owns and operates Sage Farm Goat Dairy together with her sister, Katie Pindell. This year, Sage Farm won two ribbons in the farmstead cheese category at the American Cheese Society National Judging and Competition. The Pindells operate their dairy and care for their herd of alpine goats in Stowe, Vermont, and Sage Farm products are available at markets throughout New England. Molly was featured in a news story about the award on WCAX television in Vermont.

Danity Pike selected as Luna Composition Lab fellow

YMP alumna Danity Pike is one of six composers selected as 2024–25 Luna Composition Lab fellows. Danity (age 16) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She began playing piano at the age of 7 and has been interested in music creation ever since. Danity is currently excited by conceptual composition techniques and performance in songwriting. Her music is often inspired by storytelling, navigating the world between poetry and composition. Congratulations, Danity!

Founded in 2016 by composers Missy Mazzoli and Ellen Reid, Luna Composition Lab provides mentorship, education, and resources for young female, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming composers ages 13-18. Luna’s ensemble-in-residence this season will be the International Contemporary Ensemble, a frequent ensemble-in-residence at both of Walden’s programs.

Luke Poeppel appointed Assistant Conductor of Kansas City Symphony

Luke Poeppel, a German-American conductor who attended YMP for five summers, is serving as as an assistant conductor to the Kansas City Symphony during Matthias Pintscher’s first season as music director. He will conduct the orchestra in Handel’s Messiah, among other performances this season. Poeppel is a 2024 graduate of the Eastman School of Music where he received his master’s in conducting under the tutelage of Brad Lubman and Timothy Long. He recently served as cover conductor for a Pintscher-led concert with the New York Philharmonic featuring the premiere of Pintscher’s piece neharot, the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with Gil Shaham, and Schönberg’s Pelleas und Melisande. Congratulations, Luke!

Splinter Reeds releases new album

Splinter Reeds, a past visiting ensemble at YMP, released their third full-length recording, Dark Currents, in August on Canteloupe Music. Dark Currents features two long-form works, Michael Gordon’s Tall Grass and Antenna Studies by Paula Matthusen, a past Composer-in-Residence at YMP, who will return as Composer-in-Residence at CMR in 2025. The album was recorded at SFCM in Dolby Atmos immersive audio, which allows sounds to be placed and recorded spatially in three-dimensional space. At the album release party on August 16 in San Francisco, the audience experienced the Gordon and Matthusen pieces in their intended immersive, spatialized format, alongside spatially conceived works by veteran Walden faculty member Sam Pluta and others.

Lukáš Janata and Lila Meretzky at Mizzou

Lukáš Janata (CMR alumnus and YMP faculty) and Lila Meretzky (YMP faculty and CMR staff) were composers-in-residence at the 2024 Mizzou International Composers Festival at the University of Missouri Columbia. They worked with the players of Alarm Will Sound on new pieces for the ensemble that were performed on July 27, at the Missouri Theater. Esteemed composer George Lewis (past composer-in-residence at both YMP and CMR) was a mentor composer there, along with composer Mary Kouyoumdjian. This summer, Lukáš was also in residence at the Aspen Music Festival as a recipient of the Susan and Ford Schumann Fellowship.

Mary Fineman and “The Sound of Lemonade”

Mary Fineman, a JCC alumna and pianist, shared a moment of musical serendipity this month, which you can enjoy here. And a piano trio by Mary was performed in San Franciso on September 20 as part of a concert sponsored by NACUSAsf (National Association of Composers USA, San Francisco Branch).

Freya Waley-Cohen releases debut album

Composer and YMP alumna Freya Waley-Cohen released her debut album, Spell Book, on October 25 on NMC Records, which includes the song cycle that inspired the album’s title along with three chamber works. Featured artists include members of the Albion Quartet and the Manchester Collective, with singers Héloïse Werner, Fleur Barron, and Katie Bray. The album can be ordered here. Freya will also be giving a pre-concert talk for her new orchestral work Mother Tongue, which will be premiered on November 6 by the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Royal Festival Hall.

Walden composers and artists participate in American Composers Orchestra (ACO) EarShot program

ACO’s EarShot is an ongoing program to develop relationships between composers and orchestras at the national level. Veteran Walden faculty member and Teacher Training Institute (TTI) alumna Osnat Netzer will have her work Common Ground performed at the first EarShot Readings event in Ottawa, Ontario, on October 28-29 with Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra.

In January 2025, an EarShot Readings session will be hosted by Lawrence University, with past YMP and CMR Composer-in-Residence Marcos Balter serving as a mentor composer. And in March 2025, Mazz Swift (a past YMP visiting artist) will be featured in an EarShot CoLABoratory Workshop, in which commissioned artists will develop their ideas in partnership with ACO and partner ensembles through an artist-led process.

Orchestral work by Nicolás Lell Benavides premiered

Last spring, Acequia, a new orchestral work by CMR and TTI alumnus Nicolás Lell Benavides, was premiered by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) Orchestra under music director Edwin Outwater. That performance is now available for streaming here, and Benavides was featured in an article about the creation of the piece, which draws on the concept of acequia, an ancient irrigation system symbolizing water-sharing and communal responsibility. Acequia was commissioned by the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music as part of the Composing Earth initiative.

Joel St. Julien honored for work supporting youth

Joel St. Julien, a CMR alumnus YMP alum parent, was honored by San Francisco District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen for his work supporting Bay Area youth as Program Director at New Door Ventures, a nonprofit that connects transition-age youth to work and education with paid, meaningful jobs, skills training, educational support, and individualized case management. Joel is also a prolific composer, sound artist, and video artist based in San Francisco. Congratulations on this honor, Joel!

Davey Hiester graduates and pursues master’s degree

Bassoonist and conductor Davey Hiester, a YMP alumnus, wrote to share that his two summers at Walden are “still some of my most life-changing musical experiences that I cherish deeply and still reflect on to this day. I’ve also just graduated from UT Austin and will be going to Yale for my Masters in Bassoon Performance this fall!” Congrats, Davey!

Ann Callaway and Claudia Stevens featured on Sonic Harvest

Sonic Harvest, a long-running Bay Area performing arts series, presented the premiere of Missa Brevis by Ann Callaway (pictured), a Junior Conservatory Camp alumna and former YMP faculty member. The concert, held on October 6 at the Berkeley Piano Club, also included the premiere of a new opera, The Singer Josephine, with music by Allen Shearer and a libretto by Claudia Stevens, a past visiting artist at Walden.

Kyra Sims reprises YMP festival piece

Kyra Sims, a member of The Walden School Players, performed a composition by YMP alumnus Owen O’Connor on October 13 as part of the University of Oregon’s Horn Day. The composition, Where Will You Take Me for horn and electric guitar, was written as Owen’s festival piece at YMP this summer.

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.

A dance during the 2019 Young Musicians Program