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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Emi Ostrom
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Francesca Hellerman
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Hannah Rice
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Josíah Garza
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Justice Nious
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Kari Francis
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Loretta Notareschi
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Lu Caudle
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Lucas Blohm Villanueva
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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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Sophia Thompson
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Theo Trevisan
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Veronica Kao
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Zach Amdur
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
Assistant Director of Operations & Assistant Choral Director, Young Musicians Program
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 & 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 was thrilled to return to Walden in a faculty role in 2016 and has loved teaching at Walden as a faculty member and academic dean nearly every summer since then.
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, Quince Ensemble, and Splinter Reeds, amongst other ensembles.
Based in Ohio, Cara is the Vice Chair and Treasurer of the Cleveland Composers Guild. She has served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at The College of Wooster and an Adjunct Instructor of Music at Notre Dame College, and she taught private piano, theory, and composition lessons through the Butler Community Arts School in Indianapolis. Cara 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. When she is not composing, Cara enjoys baking desserts, going on long road trips, and hanging out with her cat, Pippin. Please visit http://chaxomusic.com.
Emi Ostrom
Faculty, Young Musicians Program
Emi Ostrom (they/she) is a Brooklyn-based oboist, singer and composer fascinated by paradoxes: historicity in contemporary music, spiritual atheism and the surprising humanity of algorithms. Their work deals with the merging of new and old, and the places where distinctions dissolve.
Emi has performed on four continents, and spent several years living abroad in Japan and England. Her oboe playing was once said to “melt our hearts” (New Zealand Herald). She has performed with renowned period-instrument orchestras including Juilliard415, Les Arts Florissants, Philharmonia Baroque, The American Classical Orchestra, Bach Vespers at Holy Trinity, Yale Camerata and Upper Valley Baroque. As a singer, she holds a mezzo-soprano position at St James Church and has collaborated with many choirs including Medieval Women’s Choir, Emerald Ensemble, Mägi Ensemble, Vox Anima, and St James Cathedral Cantorei.
Emi can be heard performing the English horn solo on “The Sneetches” album with Oberlin Orchestra, and oboe on prog rock album “The Return” by Deep Energy Orchestra. She has sung the National Anthem at a Mariners game, played with funk bassist Evan Flory-Barnes, and performed in a Classical wind quintet for GEMS Midtown Concerts. With Juilliard415 she performed regularly at Lincoln Center, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Royal Conservatory of the Hague, Music Before 1800, and on a national broadcast by Early Music America. Emi embraces the joy of composing-performing. Her compositions have been performed by Juilliard Double Visions, Hub New Music, Corvid Ensemble, Deixis Ensemble, Les Chanterelles, and Warp Trio, and her own recitals at Oberlin and Juilliard.
As an educator, she is on faculty at the Walden School, teaching courses in musicianship and composition. She has worked at Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program as oboe fellow, lecturer and teaching assistant; tutored music theory for Juilliard Extension, and coached oboe students for the Seattle Youth Symphony. Emi holds bachelor’s degrees in neuroscience and oboe performance from Oberlin, a master’s in vocal performance from University of York and a master’s in historical performance from Juilliard. In her spare time Emi enjoys collecting instruments. Her growing family includes a newly restored 19th-century oboe and English horn, 2-key baroque oboes and a baroque oboe d’amore, an 8-key Classical oboe, a modern oboe, a baroque alto recorder, and a 3D-printed Renaissance cornetto. She hand-makes all of her reeds and usually keeps at least four types of oboe reeds on hand.
Francesca Hellerman
Staff, Creative Musicians Retreat
Faculty, Young Musicians Program
Hannah Rice
Composer/soprano Hannah Rice is drawn to extremes. Her music often features hyperfeminine vocalizations, playful theatrics, and cathartic screams to create humorous and vulnerable works.
Hannah’s music has been performed at notable venues, including Carnegie Hall, Cadogan Hall London, and New Music on the Point. In 2024, Hannah attended the Aspen Music Festival as a Composition Fellow, where she was awarded the Hermitage Prize in Composition. She has received commissions from organizations such as Piano Spheres, Vox Anima London, and the Cincinnati Song Initiative.
Not only is Hannah a composer but she is also an active performer of opera and new music. Her recent roles include the Soprano Soloist in Kaija Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone and Controller in Flight. She performs professionally throughout Los Angeles with organizations such as Opera Buffs, St. James in the City, and Exilio Ensemble.
Hannah is also a passionate music educator, currently teaching private voice at Citrus College and in her own private studio. She is a Vocal Coach for the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus and a Teaching Artist for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. She holds Master of Music degrees in both Composition and Vocal Arts & Opera from USC’s Thornton School of Music.
Josíah Garza
Josíah Garza is an interdisciplinary artist hailing from the Mexican American border of South Texas. As a composer, educator, and storyteller his work roots itself in communication and collaboration with oppressed communities. He was raised in the arts, and his childhood studying percussion, visual art, contemporary dance, and traditional Mexican ballet folklorico evolved his practice into a dialogue across artistic mediums. Whether through music-theatre, living-art-installation, or spoken-word performance, his work is an extension of the stories he seeks to tell and the hazy moments he aims to piece together in a concept of survival known as pachada.
Josíah is currently a Pathways to DMA Fellow of the Peabody Institute set to earn his doctorate in music composition under the direction of Sky Macklay. As a Pathways Fellow, he works as a citizen-artist between the academy and society, and has become a Presser Graduate Music Awardee to found and direct the interdisciplinary arts collective, Wieldflower Arts. Previously, he earned a BA in Music from the Butler School of Music and a BSA in Biology from UT Austin.
Josíah is honored to be joining the faculty of The Walden School’s Young Musicians Program in the summer of 2026 inspiring the future of creative musicians.
Justice Nious
Justice C. Nious is a composer and sound designer based in Baltimore, Maryland, where he is currently pursuing his Bachelor of Music degree in Music for New Media: Film and Game Scoring at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. His work has been performed by members of the International Contemporary Ensemble and members of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and he has collaborated on several projects with film students from the Maryland Institute College of Art and the Johns Hopkins Film Department. His passion for storytelling through music is at the core of everything he creates, and he’s excited to see where his musical journey takes him.
Kari Francis
Choral Director, Young Musicians Program
Dr. Kari Francis is an American choral musician whose work explores the resonant spaces between improvisation, ritual, and canonical styles. She can be heard singing with the NYC-based Choral Chameleon and beatboxing on Season 3 of NBC’s The Sing-Off with Kinfolk 9 and on GRAMMY-winner Cory Smythe’s album Accelerate Every Voice. Her approach to teaching and concertizing centers living and historically underrepresented voices as part of equitable, creative, and learner-centered pedagogies, while her composing merges elements of psalmody, vocal jazz, renaissance polyphony, and contemporary a cappella. She has written chapters for books published by GIA Music and the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), and maintains an active schedule as a guest conductor and clinician. Kari is the Director of Choral Activities at Bowdoin College and the choir director of The Walden School Young Musicians Program. She holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Teachers College Columbia University, the University of California at San Diego, and the University of Notre Dame. Her doctoral thesis, “Not An Object But Motion: Choral Improvisation Through Vocal Painting,” offers techniques for conductors to foster individual and collective artistic agency in choral ensembles while expanding concert programming to include collaboratively realized works.
Loretta Notareschi
Faculty, Creative Musicians Retreat
Lu Caudle
Lucas Blohm Villanueva
Lucas Blohm Villanueva is a performer and composer from Caracas, Venezuela. Currently pursuing a BA in Musical Studies at Oberlin College, Lucas can usually be found making music, DJing, performing in the Oberlin Gospel Choir, or serving on the board of the college radio station. He has been part of YMP since 2017 and is very excited to return this summer as staff.
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 in Hartford, 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 “engrossing” (KFFP) and “like looking into your soul” (Raighes Factory). His music has travelled worldwide: 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.
Sophia Thompson
Sophia Thompson, soprano, is currently pursuing her Bachelor of Music degree in Choral Music at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. A flexible choral artist, she regularly performs with the USC Chamber Singers and the USC Choral Collective. She also serves as the soprano section leader and assistant conductor for the USC Oriana Treble Choir. In addition to her work as a vocalist and conductor, Sophia teaches choral music in Los Angeles public schools through the Thornton Community Engagement Program.
Sophia’s artistic work spans many genres. In addition to her classical training, she fuels her love for contemporary music through singing with and music directing the USC Troy Tones. She regularly writes pop and jazz a cappella arrangements for the group.
Sophia has represented USC and CSArts in the Los Angeles Community performing at Walt Disney Concert Hall (Noon to Midnight, Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with the USC Thornton Symphony), Descanso Gardens (Enchanted Forest of Light), the Music Center (64th Annual L.A. County Holiday Celebration on PBS), and Pasadena Art Night.
Sophia has also sung with several church choirs, including Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church in Altadena, Church of the Good Shepherd in Arcadia, and Westwood United Methodist Church.
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, Talujon, Friction Quartet, Antioch Chamber Ensemble, HEX Vocal Ensemble, DJ Sparr, David Friend, and Soo Yeon Lyuh. He has sung with the choir of St. James in-the-City LA, Tonality, Choral Arts Initiative, and Gallicantus, among others. Additionally, he is an original member of Exilio, a vocal octet dedicated to programming new music and underrepresented composers. His music was recently programmed at Hear Now Festival in Los Angeles and Penn State’s New Music Symposium.
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.
Theo contributed to software development of Dan Trueman’s bitKlavier app and Jeff Snyder’s Vocodec instrument. Additionally, he has been teaching musicianship for National Children’s Chorus and LA Children’s Chorus since 2024. Other interests include reading obscure history, playing strategy games, telling bad puns, skiing, and vegetarian cooking. Theo has been a part of the Walden community for many years: he attended the Young Musicians Program from 2014-2017 and he has worked at the Young Musicians Program since 2019. Learn more at theotrevisan.com
Veronica Kao
Faculty, Young Musicians Program
Veronica “Vonnie” Kao is a composer from Boston, Massachusetts whose works foreground colors that spin out organically into poetic phrases. Her pieces have been likened to “flower(s) slowly blossoming,” and take inspiration from a variety of contemporary musical styles, visual arts, and literature. Her works have been performed by Talujon, The Rhythm Method Quartet, Horizon Ensemble, the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Boston Conservatory Sinfonietta, and more. Veronica holds 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 and an M.M. from the Boston Conservatory. Notable teachers include Victoria Cheah, Mischa Salkind-Pearl, Zachary Wadsworth, and Gabriele Proy. Veronica also remains an avid performer on flute and piccolo and is a passionate educator. She is very excited to be teaching at Walden again and is looking forward to a fun summer!
Zach Amdur
Zach Amdur is a classical tenor from Buffalo, NY, currently studying vocal performance at the Eastman School of Music under Anthony Dean Griffey. He is passionate about both solo and choral music, performing in the Eastman Chorale. An aspiring choral conductor, Zach has conducted through Eastman’s ACDA chapter, audits William Weinert’s graduate choral conducting class, and is pursuing coursework in music education and conducting. Zach attended the Walden School’s Young Musicians Program in the summer of 2023 and is thrilled to return as staff this summer.
Summer 2026
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