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 2025 Young Musicians Program Faculty & Staff
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Aidan Gold
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Ashlin Hunter
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Cara Haxo
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Carlos Henrique Pereira
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Francesca Hellerman
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Kari Francis
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Kittie Cooper
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Lukáš Janata
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Luke Schroeder
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Nate Trier
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Paul Zito
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Sammi Stone
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Seth Brenzel
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Shannon Dunning
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Tara McGovern
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Theo Trevisan
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Veronica Kao
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William Bolles-Beaven
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.
Ashlin Hunter
Faculty, Young Musicians Program 2025
Ashlin Hunter is a Los Angeles-based composer and educator. Her artistic practice includes electroacoustic composition, generative sound installations, computer music, and acoustic concert music. Ashlin prioritizes discovery in the creative process by building digital compositional tools that expand iterative practices and use the computer as a musical collaborator. Her recent projects put generative computer systems in dialogue with her earliest musical memories of sacred music from Oklahoma, exploring the relationship between electronic music and musical heritage.
Ashlin’s music has been performed across the United States and in Europe, including performances at Cincinnati’s concert:nova, the Aspen Music Festival, the University of Nebraska-Kearney New Music Festival, the OK Electric Festival, the Cortona Sessions for New Music (Cortona, Italy) and the National Opera Center (NYC). Ashlin is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts in Music Composition at the University of Southern California, where her research is focused on music teaching and learning, disability and accessibility in music spaces, and electronic music. She holds a Master of Music in Composition from USC and a Bachelor of Music in Composition from Bowling Green State University.
Ashlin is excited to join the Walden teaching faculty this summer after being a participant of the CMR in 2016 and 2017. She looks forward to birdwatching for New Hampshire birds and taking nature hikes.
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.
Carlos Henrique Pereira
Carlos Henrique Pereira is an accomplished composer, performer, educator, and music producer. Alongside his thriving career as a musician, he has been deeply committed to educating students since the age of 18 when he began teaching at the music conservatory in his hometown. Carlos draws from his extensive studies in classical music, Brazilian music, popular music, and jazz to enrich his teaching, exposing his students to a diverse range of musical styles. He firmly believes in the inherent musicality of every child and sees it as his duty to nurture and develop their musical abilities. Carlos’s teaching approach focuses on instilling joy and fun into music, fostering a sense of accomplishment through personalized and attainable goals for each student.
Carlos’s journey as a composer started at a young age, and despite the absence of formal training, he made history by becoming the youngest composer to have a work selected for the Brazilian Contemporary Music Biennial in Rio de Janeiro in 1983. His compositions were featured alongside those of renowned Brazilian modern composers. Throughout his career, Carlos has composed and recorded four albums of original compositions, with his fifth album currently in progress. His musical contributions have garnered numerous awards and recognition. Notably, Carlos has composed and arranged music for various dance companies in New York and has performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall and Merkin Hall. He has had the privilege of collaborating with many esteemed jazz artists. During his time in New York, Carlos also produced a diverse catalog of original music that has been featured in numerous movies and TV shows worldwide.
In 2009, Carlos received a grant in Brazil to compose his third album, titled “Minas, Gerais,” which was released in 2011. Dedicated to his home state, the album received widespread acclaim from critics and fans, earning a nomination for the 24th Brazilian Music Awards.
Since relocating to California, Carlos has captivated audiences through various performances, including appearances at the Healdsburg Jazz Festival and the Blue Note in Napa. His musical endeavors have been acknowledged and supported by organizations such as the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music, where he was awarded the 2016 Music Grant Program, and Creative Sonoma, which honored him with the 2019 Next Level Grant award. Carlos takes immense pride in being a father to his nine-year-old son and eleven-year-old daughter, whom he affectionately considers his favorite students.
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.
Kittie Cooper
Faculty, Academic Dean, Director of Electronic Music, & Director of Composers Forums
Young Musicians Program
Kittie Cooper is a sound and intermedia artist, performer, and educator based in Charlottesville, Virginia. Kittie makes work that explores the spectrum between silliness and seriousness, and in particular where those two qualities overlap with spookiness. Much of their work deals with the messy insides of humans, electronics, and other everyday things. Their work has been called “highly original and wonderfully fun.” Kittie’s music has been commissioned and performed by International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Ensemble Dal Niente, Splinter Reeds, TAK Ensemble, Warp Trio, Popebama, and Ghost Ensemble. She has also performed and presented at a variety of festivals and conferences across the United States, and performs regularly as a guitarist, electronic musician, and improviser.
Currently, Kittie serves as Education Director and a teaching artist for MIMA Music, an educational nonprofit that builds community through collaborative music-making. During the summer, she serves as Director of Electronic Music, Director of Composers Forums, and Faculty for The Walden School Young Musicians Program—this will be Kittie’s eleventh year at Walden! Kittie holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Simon Fraser University’s School for Contemporary Arts, an MEd in Special Education from George Mason University, and a BM from Northwestern University in Music Education and Guitar Performance. Kittie also likes ghost stories, chili, and cats.
You can find more info about Kittie and their work at kittiecooper.com.
Lukáš Janata
Faculty, Young Musicians Program
Lukáš, a Czech San Francisco-based artist, explores empathy in various forms, serving as a composer, educator, performer, and organizer. As a board director at The Resonance Project, he explores music’s role in conflict transformation through neuroscience. He co-organized the Ukraine-benefit Concert of Compassion and the ECHOES concert series for empathy in Prague. He instructs at The Walden School and the San Francisco Conservatory Of Music. He received artist residencies and fellowships at the Wurlitzer Foundation, KHN Center, ISCM’s VICC, VCCA, Casa Uno, Millay Arts, Jentel, and Aspen Music Festival. Lukáš received commissions from San Francisco Symphony, Alarm Will Sound, Janáček Philharmonic, Orchestra of St Luke’s, Cantori New York, and others. For more info, please visit: lukasjanata.cz
Luke Schroeder
Staff, Creative Musicians Retreat
Assistant Director of Operations, 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
Sammi Stone
Director of Operations
Faculty, Young Musicians Program
Sammi Jo Stone is an arts administrator, oboist, saxophonist, and woodwind enthusiast. 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, the Berkshire Symphony, the Grande Ronde Symphony Orchestra, and the La Jolla Symphony. She is passionate about teaching, learning, and discovering new abilities and skills, and hopes to do an unassisted chin-up before the end of the year. Sammi discovered Walden as a Creative Musicians Retreat participant in 2017.
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.
Shannon Dunning
Staff, Young Musicians Program
Tara McGovern
Staff, Young Musicians Program
Tara McGovern is a piano performer from Gainesville, Florida, and is currently pursuing a degree in both piano performance and mathematics at The College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio. She has been playing piano since she was 8 years old and is an active performer at the college and is also a part of other groups such as Wooster Singers. Having been playing piano for a while, Tara fell in love with music at a young age, frequently learning from and listening to her older siblings play. Outside of music and practicing piano, she also enjoys swimming, arts and crafts, and reading.
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.
William Bolles-Beaven
Faculty, Young Musicians Program
William Bolles-Beaven is a New York City-based composer whose work focuses on creating psychological spaces. In particular, he uses rhythmic complexity and repetition to explore confusion, fixation, and “getting lost.” Text often influences how these states evolve over time, as does dialectical musical thinking. Bolles-Beaven’s compositions have been performed domestically and abroad (Italy, Germany, Spain) and have received recognitions like the Nicholas Flagello Award, the Aschaffenburg Prize, and being named a finalist in the ASCAP Morton Gould Composition Awards (2022). He has worked with artists such as Dan Lippel, Joshua Rubin, Friction Quartet, Mivos Quartet, and TAK. He received his Bachelor of Music from Oberlin Conservatory studying under Elizabeth Ogonek and received his Master of Music from Manhattan School of Music studying under Reiko Fueting. In 2018, he was a fellow of the United States Teaching Assistant Program of the Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF), which was administered by Fulbright Austria (Austrian-American Education Commission). As part of the fellowship, he taught English to high school students in Bregenz, Austria. He currently teaches at Hunter College while pursuing his Ph.D. in composition at the CUNY Graduate Center where he has studied with Jason Eckardt, Douglas Geers, and Suzanne Farrin.
Summer 2025
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