Our faculty and staff are committed to developing the next generation’s composers, performers and arts advocates.
Faculty and staff take an active role in Walden’s community life by living alongside the students in dormitories. They eat meals together, participate in various school-wide recreational activities, and share the tasks that maintain the school and assure the safety of all it members. Our philosophy is that by participating together in all levels of community life, faculty, staff, visiting artists, and students can create an environment where close relationships develop and creativity flourishes.
Outside of the summer session, our leaders are distinguished in the fields of composition, theory, arranging, performance, pedagogy, arts administration, and arts advocacy. Our staff holds degrees from institutions such as Eastman School of Music, Mills College, Yale University, Williams College, University of Washington, Luther College, New England Conservatory, College of Wooster, University of Michigan, Peabody Conservatory, Northwestern University, Columbia University, Oberlin College Conservatory, University of California, Swarthmore College, University of Southern California, SUNY-Buffalo, University of Cincinnati Conservatory, SUNY-Stony Brook, New England Conservatory, Harvard University, and Duke University.
Meet the 2026 Young Musicians Program Faculty & Staff
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Aidan Gold
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Brian Fancher
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Camara Kambon
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Cara Haxo
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Francesca Hellerman
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Kari Francis
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Luke Schroeder
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Nate Trier
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Paul Zito
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Rodier
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Sammi Stone
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Seth Brenzel
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Theo Trevisan
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Veronica Kao
Aidan Gold
Faculty, Young Musicians Program
Aidan Gold is a composer, conductor, percussionist, and educator. His work often focuses on musical games, improvisation, theatricality, and narrative/storytelling. He is fascinated with the idea of music as a social act – a game/ritual that we perform to allow us to communicate and connect with one another, defining, challenging, and expanding our individual and collective identities.
Gold is currently pursuing a DMA in Composition at the Juilliard School. He has a MM in Composition from USC, and a BM in Composition and a BS in Computer Science from the University of Washington. Gold’s composition mentors include Andrew Norman, Nina Young, Frank Ticheli, and Huck Hodge. His music has been performed by the Seattle Symphony, the Juilliard Orchestra, the JACK Quartet, and others, and has won awards including the Arthur Friedman and Palmer Dixon prizes.
Gold is also a conductor and is passionate about working closely with performers to innovate methods of performance and connections between musicians. He was the assistant music director of the USC Student Symphony Orchestra from 2020-2021. Gold is also one of the founding members of AFK, a NYC contemporary chamber music collective that focuses on interactive musical experiences. His other interests include origami and hiking.
Brian Fancher
Staff & Assistant Technical Director, Young Musicians Program
Brian Fancher is a music educator, conductor, and vocalist based in Cleveland, Ohio. Since 2013, he has served as Director of Vocal Music at Mayfield High School, where he teaches choir, band, music theory, and music technology. He also directs Mayfield’s show choir and biannual musical productions. As a baritone, Brian has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and the Cleveland Chamber Choir. He holds a Bachelor of Music Education from The College of Wooster and a Master of Music in Choral Conducting from Michigan State University, where he studied under David Rayl, Jonathan Reed, Derrick Fox, and Sandra Snow. In his spare time, Brian enjoys playing video games, annoying his cat, playing Ultimate, and taking photos of people, places, and things.
Camara Kambon
Faculty, Young Musicians Program 2025
Camara Kambon is an Emmy Award-winning composer who has written for a diverse range of films, TV shows, and recording artists. His work includes the Oscar-nominated La Corona, Any Given Sunday, Biker Boyz, and the theme for the CW Network’s Girlfriends. He recently composed the score for Acts of Reparation (currently on the festival circuit), and his work was featured in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, Thor: Love and Thunder, and the upcoming Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, starring Mahershali Ali. He has collaborated with Dizzy Gillespie, Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Cara Haxo
Faculty, Creative Musicians Retreat
Academic Dean, Young Musicians Program
At the encouragement of her mother, Cara Haxo begrudgingly attended Walden as a student in 2004. As soon as she arrived on campus, she immediately fell in love with everything about Walden and came back for another five summers. She is thrilled to return to Walden more recently as a faculty member and academic dean. Cara is the winner of the 2022 National Women’s Musical Festival Emerging Women Composers Competition. She was also awarded the 2019 International Alliance for Women in Music Libby Larsen Prize, the 2013 National Federation of Music Clubs Young Composers Award, and the 2013 IAWM Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Prize. Her works have been premiered by the May Festival Youth Chorus, Hub New Music, Quince Ensemble, and Splinter Reeds, amongst other ensembles.
Cara is a Visiting Assistant Professor at The College of Wooster in Ohio. She earned her Ph.D. in Composition at the University of Oregon, where she worked as a Graduate Teaching Fellow in Music Theory. She also holds degrees from Butler University and The College of Wooster. She previously taught courses in composition and theory as an Adjunct Instructor of Music at Notre Dame College (Ohio), and private piano, theory, and composition lessons through the Butler Community Arts School in Indianapolis. When she is not composing, Cara enjoys baking desserts, going on long road trips, and hanging out with her cat, Pippin. For more information, please visit http://chaxomusic.com.
Francesca Hellerman
Staff, Creative Musicians Retreat
Faculty, Young Musicians Program
Kari Francis
Choral Director, Young Musicians Program
Kari Francis (she/her) is a vocalist, arranger, and choral music educator who has shared the stage with Imogen Heap, competed on Season 3 of NBC’s The Sing-Off with Kinfolk 9, and can be heard beatboxing on Grammy Award-winning pianist-composer Cory Smythe’s album Accelerate Every Voice. Currently a choral conducting doctoral student in the Sacred Music program at the University of Notre Dame, her past teaching includes choral arranging, ear training, music theory, and directing vocal ensembles at the College of Saint Rose, Mannes School of Music, CUNY Hunter College, and Teachers College Columbia University. Kari was previously a conducting fellow with the Young People’s Chorus of New York City and has taught in NYC public schools as a Midori & Friends vocal teaching artist. Her writings on contemporary a cappella have been published by GIA Music and NATS, and she frequently leads workshops on arranging, vocal percussion, and group vocal improvisation at music festivals and conferences around the world. Kari holds degrees in music education from the Eastman School of Music, Teachers College Columbia University, and music theory/composition from the University of California, San Diego. Her research interests include choral improvisation, collaborative learning, and popular music in the choral classroom.
Luke Schroeder
Faculty & Staff, Young Musicians Program
Luke was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, and currently lives in Austin, Texas. He graduated from Texas Tech University, where he received a BM in Music Education, in 2023. At Texas Tech, Luke played Viola in the University Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Bravura, and New Music Ensemble and sang with the Texas Tech Matador Singers. He has played with the Wichita Falls Youth Symphony Orchestra and Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra as well. Luke worked for the Texas Tech String Project throughout college. String Project is an organization funded by Texas Tech University that allows string music education students to teach beginner string players. Luke now works as a middle school Orchestra & Guitar teacher at Webb Middle School in Austin, Texas. He has been working for Walden since 2019, where he has worked as a staff member, teacher, conductor, and Assistant Director of Operations. Luke is looking forward to a fun and exciting summer at Walden!
Nate Trier
Faculty & Academic Dean, Young Musicians Program
Nate Trier is a composer and producer, based just outside of New Haven, CT, who creates electronic music that features lyrical piano and accordion melodies over churning soundscapes of buzzing drones, fuzzy drums, and crackling static. He describes his music as “classical ambient beats;” others have described it as “quite engrossing” (KFFP) and “like looking into your soul” (Raighes Factory). His music has travelled worldwide: abstract visual artist Sergei Petrov used Trier’s music for installations in Zelenograd, Russia, and the 48th International Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt, Germany distributed a recording of Trier’s fixed-media piece, “Serial Parameter Shift,” to attendees. Trier has released several collections of electronic music, including singles, EP’s, and albums.
Paul Zito
Young Musicians Program staff
Rodier
Technical Director, Young Musicians Program & Creative Musicians Retreat 2025
Rodier is a composer living and working in New York City. His work is often collaborative and has appeared in a range of venues from galleries, to concert halls, to film festivals. The most recent work has been focused on producing contemporary music, film, and works for the stage across many different disciplines and genres. He has a passion for education, film making, public transportation, and he holds a master’s degree in Music Composition from New York University.
Sammi Stone
Director of Operations
Faculty, Young Musicians Program
Sammi Jo Stone is an arts administrator and performer on oboe, English horn, saxophones, and other woodwinds. She lives in Norwich, Connecticut, and is originally from Baker City in rural northeastern Oregon. She studied music at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and the University of California San Diego, and has performed with Long Beach Opera, Berkshire Symphony Orchestra, Grande Ronde Symphony Orchestra, La Jolla Symphony, and Willimantic Symphony Orchestra. Sammi discovered Walden as a Creative Musicians Retreat participant in 2017. This is her sixth summer working as Director of Operations.
Seth Brenzel
Executive Director & Director, Young Musicians Program
Seth Brenzel, Executive Director, has been associated with The Walden School for nearly 40 years. He was fortunate to be a student at Walden for six magical summers (1985-1990), and since 1994, has served the School as a staff member, faculty member, board member, Director of Operations, and as the Associate Director from 1996 to 2003, when he became Walden’s Executive Director. Since 1995, he has sung tenor with the Grammy Award-winning San Francisco Symphony Chorus, and is currently a professional (AGMA) member of that ensemble.
In 2023, Seth was appointed by Mayor London Breed to serve on the San Francisco Arts Commission. Seth chairs the board of the PRISM Quartet and serves on the boards of Ensemble Dal Niente and of the San Francisco Friends School, a board he has previously co-clerked. He has also served on the boards of Swarthmore College and Earplay. Seth received his B.A., with degrees in Music and Political Science, from Swarthmore College, where he served as President of the College’s Alumni Association. He received an M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, with a focus in non-profit management and marketing. He is a graduate of Leadership San Francisco, where he serves as an alumni advisor.
Prior to becoming Walden’s first full-time Executive Director, Seth worked part-time for Walden during the year and held positions as a senior consultant at Deloitte Consulting, in marketing and public relations at the San Francisco Symphony, and led both the marketing and the enterprise sales teams for an internet software company, now part of Adobe. When not at Walden, Seth lives in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco with his husband, Malcolm Gaines, and their daughter, Cora.
Theo Trevisan
Faculty, Young Musicians Program
Theo Trevisan (b. 1999) is a Los Angeles-based composer, bass-baritone, and conductor from New Jersey. His music balances intensity and whimsy as it puts idiosyncratic spins on unlikely combinations of old and new influences.
Theo’s music has been performed by many collaborators, including the International Contemporary Ensemble, TAK Ensemble, Mivos Quartet, Friction Quartet, Antioch Chamber Ensemble, Princeton Laptop Orchestra, DJ Sparr, David Friend, Matthew Gold, and Soo Yeon Lyuh. He has sung with the choir of St. James in-the-City LA, Tonality, Choral Arts Initiative, Gallicantus, various Princeton and USC choirs, and the Princeton Katzenjammers acapella group. Additionally, he sings in the recently founded vocal octet Exilio, which is dedicated to programming new music and composers from underrepresented groups.
As a child, Theo sang at the American Boychoir School, performing in 30 states and South Korea with world-class conductors and ensembles. Theo holds a B.A. from Princeton and an M.M. in Composition from USC. His composition mentors include Ted Hearne, Andrew Norman, Donald Crockett, Jeff Snyder, Dan Trueman, Donnacha Dennehy, and Dmitri Tymozcko. He has studied voice with Reid Bruton and Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek; and conducting with Gabriel Crouch and Tram Sparks.
Veronica Kao
Faculty, Young Musicians Program
Veronica “Vonnie” Kao is a composer from Boston, Massachusetts whose works make up a mosaic of styles and whose pieces include motivic-based writing in addition to colors that spin out organically into poetic phrases. Taking inspiration from a variety of contemporary musical styles, folk musics, literature, and human psychology, her compositions can move freely between free timbral exploration, quasi-tonal lyricism, and punchy, energetic, and rustic folk-inspired styles. Veronica continues to be an avid and passionate performer on flute and piccolo with ensembles such as the Berkshire Symphony Orchestra, at the I/O New Music Festival, and in various musical theatre pit orchestras. Her music has been performed internationally in Vienna, Austria and Puget-Ville, France at Uebayashi La Mélodieuse festival, and throughout the United States. Veronica has won a Platinum Prize and the Artistic Visionary Special Award from the Beethoven International Music Competition S1 2023 and was a finalist in the International Artists Competition. Her choral composition “Two-Headed Calf” was the winning composition of the U.S. Navy’s 2023 Alton Adams Award for Emerging Composers. She holds a B.A. from Williams College where she studied composition with Zachary Wadsworth and is currently pursuing graduate studies at the Boston Conservatory with Mischa Salkind-Pearl.
Summer 2026
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