Reflections on the 2024 Creative Musicians Retreat (CMR)

From Caroline Mallonee, Director of CMR

The 2024 Creative Musicians Retreat has come and gone. It was a wonderful week of music-making! This summer, we welcomed 46 participants from 21 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, and Australia. More than a third of the student body were alumni of CMR, back for more Walden magic, and one participant was an alumna of the Young Musician’s Program (YMP), returning to Dublin 37 years after her first summer at Walden!

We offered twelve different classes, including four musicianship/pedagogy classes, three electronic music classes, some favorite seminars, and two new skills classes in conducting and choral writing. Our curriculum was rounded out by workshops in Irish Traditional music, writing for the guitar, writing for the flute, and exploring the creative potential of the “electro-sandbox” in the Electronic Music Studio.

Our CMR Composer-in-Residence Oscar Bettison came to us all the way from the Netherlands to lead master classes, give private lessons, and moderate our three Composers Forums, in which we heard 39 world premieres! The pieces were performed beautifully by our artists-in-residence alongside performers from our student body. Our incredible 2024 CMR artists-in-residence were pianist David Friend and members of the International Contemporary Ensemble: Colleen Bernstein (percussion), Isabel Lepanto Gleicher (flutes), Nicolee Kuester (horn), Dan Lippel (guitar), Josh Modney (violin), and Damian Norfleet (voice).

The CMR Chamber Choir, led by our choral director, Sarah Riskind, performed four world premieres at this year’s CMR Composers Forums. Sarah also led the morning choral rehearsals for the entire community. We delighted in singing both very new and very old music from a variety of composers, and we used a lot of solfège hand signs.

When we started the Creative Musicians Retreat, we hoped it would be appealing to musically inclined parents of students at our Young Musicians Program (YMP). It is! One of our participants, who had sent his daughter to YMP two years ago, came to CMR this year from his home in San Francisco. He invited his sister to join him, and she did — coming all the way from Australia! They played a delightful piano four-hands piece on Performers Night.

Performers Night kicked off with a performance by faculty member Alex Christie using slide projectors and tape loops; included six pieces by faculty and artists who coached ensembles playing their work; and offered one of the most memorable performances of the week. None of us will soon forget Liz Benjamin’s performance of PDQ Bach’s “Little Bunny Hop Hop Hop,” in which she donned a bicycle helmet and hit her head with boomwhackers (tuned percussion tubes)!

We were thrilled to return to our home at Dublin School after two years away. Although we have proved that the magic of Walden can be created elsewhere, being back in Dublin allowed us to reconnect with the memories and traditions cultivated here over forty years. It was a joy to revisit familiar spaces, revive past experiences, and build upon our shared history in this special place.

Sincerely,

Caroline Mallonee

Director, The Walden School Creative Musicians Retreat