Concerts and residencies bring artists of the
highest caliber to The Walden School
Through the performance of diverse music, guest artists play an active role in helping stimulate students’ creativity. Guest performers have included members of International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, Quince Ensemble, Warp Trio, Horszowski Trio, Hub New Music, Friction Quartet, TAK Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, PRISM Quartet, Del Sol Quartet, Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses, Dave Eggar, Peter Evans, Amadi Azikiwe, Aakash Mittal, Julia Bruskin and Aaron Wunsch, Eric Huebner, Tamsin Waley-Cohen, and Splinter Reeds.
Visiting artists are musicians and musical creators who come to Walden to perform concerts, give students feedback on their work, teach workshops, premiere student works, and participate in community events. They hail from some of the most renowned performing ensembles in the world. You can find a more complete list of Walden’s recent visiting artists here).
Each year during festival week, we invite a distinguished composer-in-residence to work with 5-week students. Walden also has its own in-house ensemble for festival week called The Walden School Players, a chamber ensemble of professional musicians who rehearse and perform students’ compositions on the Festival Week Composers Forums.
Visiting Artists at Walden’s 2026 Young Musicians Program
Nathan Davis, YMP 2026 Composer-in-Residence
Nathan Davis “writes music that deals deftly and poetically with timbre and sonority” (New York Times). His opera/ballet “Hagoromo” was produced by American Opera Projects and premiered at the BAM Next Wave Festival with the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, choreographer David Neumann, and dancers Wendy Whelan, and Jock Soto. Lincoln Center presented the premiere of “Bells”, a site-specific work for ensemble, multi-channel audio, and live broadcast to audience members’ mobile phones.
Nathan received other commissions from GMEM and Ensemble CBarré (Marseille), FringeArts and the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage (Philadelphia), Donaueschinger Musiktage (Germany), Yarn/Wire, Claire Chase, Ekmeles, Miller Theatre, Ojai Music Festival, the Calder Quartet, and Third Coast Percussion, with premieres at Tanglewood, Park Avenue Armory, Guggenheim Museum, and Carnegie Hall. His music has been released on Starkland, Tundra, New Focus, and Bridge.
The Aaron Copland Fellow at the Bogliasco Foundation, Davis received awards and fellowships from the Camargo Foundation, New Music USA, NYSCA, Meet The Composer, Fromm Foundation, Jerome Foundation, American Music Center, MATA, and ASCAP. He and Phyllis Chen won an NY Innovative Theater Award for their score to Sylvia Milo’s play “The Other Mozart.”
Also an active percussionist and member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Nathan has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Seattle Symphony, Tokyo Symphony, and Nagoya Philharmonic. A graduate of Rice, Yale, and the Rotterdam Conservatory, Nathan currently teaches at The New School.
The Walden School Players
All distinguished musicians and specialists in contemporary music, the Walden School Players share their talent and wealth of experience in contemporary music with the Walden community each summer during the course of a two-week residency. Although the roster changes somewhat from year to year, several of the Players have been returning to Walden for many summers and have formed lasting relationships with students, faculty, and staff.
While in residence at Walden, the Players work closely with student composers in readings and rehearsals, giving feedback as students prepare their pieces for Festival Week. Then, over the course of three Festival Week Composers Forums, they perform students’ pieces. In addition to their work with students, the Players present a concert of modern and contemporary chamber music in an event that is always a highlight of Walden’s concert series.
The 2026 Walden School Players are Laura Cocks (flute), Erica Dicker (violin), Zachary Good (clarinet), Kyra Sims (horn), Mabel Kwan (piano), Dennis Sullivan II (percussion), and Chris Wild (cello).
Stay tuned for upcoming announcements of more artists at the Young Musicians Program 2026!
“I’ve been absolutely blown away by all of your works, your individual voices that I’ve heard. To me you’re like a firmament of stars, which has no limit to its potential—each one unique and brilliant. I feel the world really needs you and your passion for new music, and it gives me hope that you’re going to be going out there sharing that passion.”
–Kati Agócs, Composer-in-Residence, Young Musicians Program 2019
Summer 2026
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