Administration

Seth Brenzel, Executive Director, has been associated with The Walden School for nearly 25 years. He was a student at Walden for six summers, and since 1994, has served the School as a staff member, faculty member, Director of Operations, and as the Associate Director from 1996-2003. Seth became Executive Director of The Walden School in 2003. He has served on the boards of The Walden School, Swarthmore College, and Earplay, a San Francisco-based new music ensemble. He currently serves as Past-President of the Swarthmore College Alumni Association. Seth has also served on the Development Council for the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.

Seth received his B.A., with degrees in Music and Political Science, from Swarthmore College, and received an M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. Prior to becoming Walden's first full-time Executive Director in June 2007, Seth worked part-time for Walden during the year and held positions as a senior consultant at Deloitte & Touche, in marketing and public relations at the San Francisco Symphony, and most recently led both the marketing and sales teams for the internet software company, Atomz (now Omniture). He sings tenor with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, with which he has sung since 1995. When not in Dublin, New Hampshire, Seth lives in San Francisco with his partner, Malcolm Gaines, and their cat Misha. 

Malcolm Gaines, Database Manager, administers The Walden School's alumni, donor, and recruiting database and provides IT support for the San Francisco office. He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology-Alameda, and received his B.A. in psychology and religion from the College of William and Mary in Virginia. He maintains a psychotherapy practice in San Francisco, and is the Director of Intern Training at the San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center.  Since 1996, he has been an active member of the Grammy Award-winning San Francisco Symphony Chorus. Malcolm's association with the Walden School began in 1997. He lives in San Francisco and enjoys singing, cooking, and traveling.

Marguerite Ladd, Director of Operations, recently received a Bachelor of Music degree in Composition from the New England Conservatory of Music where she studied with Michael Gandolfi and John Malia, and worked closely with Lee Hyla and Malcolm Peyton. Her music has been performed by New England Conservatory’s Honors String Quartet and New England Conservatory’s Chamber Singers among many other contemporary ensembles. She currently works for PBS in Boston composing music for several different kinds of media publications that focus on education. She spent the past year studying contemporary and folk music of the British Isles and touring around Europe and the Mediterranean. She will be attending New York University Steinhardt School in the graduate program for Composition and Sound Editing.

Esther Landau, Director of Development, coordinates fundraising and development efforts for The Walden School. Prior to her arrival at Walden, Esther was the Managing Director for Citywinds, a critically acclaimed new music wind quintet which commissioned and premiered more than 100 new works for winds. Esther received her B.M. in Flute Performance from the Oberlin Conservatory and her M.M. at the San Francisco Conservatory. She is a passionate advocate for new music, and has had the privilege of working directly with such composers as Luciano Berio, Elliott Carter, and Chen Yi. With more than two decades of teaching under her belt, Esther currently teaches flute lessons privately and through the San Francisco Conservatory's Preparatory Division. Esther enjoys doing international folk dancing and in addition to the classical flute, has dabbled in playing the Irish penny whistle and the Bulgarian kaval. Esther lives in San Francisco with her spouse Caroline Pincus and their expressive daughter Ruby.

Tom Lopez, Director, Computer Music Program, teaches at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music as Associate Professor of Computer Music and Digital Arts. Tom has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Aaron Copland Fund, the Mid-America Arts Alliance, the Knight Foundation, the Disney Foundation, Meet the Composer, ASCAP, and a Fulbright Fellowship as composer-in-residence at the Centre International de Recherche Musical in Nice, France. He has appeared at festivals and conferences around the world as a guest lecturer and composer. Tom is on the board of directors of the Living Music Foundation, has served on the executive committee of SCI (Society of Composers, Inc.), and was president of the Texas Computer Musicians Network. He has been a resident artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Copland House, Villa Montalvo, and Djerassi. His compositions have received critical acclaim and peer recognition; including a Grant for Young Composers from ASCAP and CD releases by Vox Novus, SCI, and SEAMUS (Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States). His music has been performed around the world and throughout the United States including The Kennedy Center.

Caroline Mallonée, Assistant Academic Dean, and Director, Composers Forums, has been on the faculty of The Walden School for ten summers. Carrie has written vocal, instrumental, electroacoustic, microtonal and computer music that has been performed in the United States, Mexico, Italy, England, Wales and the Netherlands. She has also written two operas and music for film.  She has recently been in residence at the MacDowell Colony and at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Carrie holds degrees from Harvard University, The Yale School of Music and Duke University, and she was a Fulbright scholar to the Netherlands in 2004.

Carrie is active as a violinist: she is a member of pulsoptional, a sextet and composers’ collective based in Durham, NC, whose first album was released in April.  She is also a founding member of Glissando bin Laden and his Musichideen, a quartet based in New York City that performs improvised electroacoustic microtonal music.

Molly Pindell, Director of Operations, has been associated with Walden for 10 years. She has served in a variety of capacities: as a staff member and administrative assistant, as Director of Operations for 7 summers, and most recently as a member of Walden’s Board of Directors. A native of the Monadnock region, Molly now lives with her family at Sage Farm in Stowe, Vermont, where she operates a small goat dairy. She makes artisan chesses from the milk of her 6 alpine does. Molly also writes about food and farming professionally; her recent publications have appeared in 5280 magazine, Boulder Weekly, Colby magazine, and Delicious Living. A professionally-trained chef, Molly holds an M.S. in Agriculture, Food, and Environment from Tufts University and a B.A. in International Studies from Colby College.

Patricia Plude, Director, Teacher Training Institute,is grateful to have been a member of The Walden School community for more than 30 years.  Serving in roles that have ranged from “junior faculty” to Executive Director, Pat is honored to direct The Walden School Teacher Training Institute, through which the school’s innovative and proven methods are being made available to a broader community of music educators.

Pat holds advanced degrees in piano performance from The Peabody Institute and the San Francisco Conservatory and has dedicated her career to promoting and performing new music, as well as teaching musicianship and improvisation.   She has performed with the San Francisco Contemporary Players, Earplay, and Alternate Currents, all Bay Area new music ensembles, and is a former member of the dynamic San Francisco performing group, Wing It!, an ensemble dedicated to mounting fully improvised performances combining dance, storytelling, and music.  Pat is certified to teach InterPlay®, a philosophy and practice of improvisation based in creativity, community, and change.  In addition, Pat has served as a faculty member of the San Francisco Conservatory Preparatory Department and Chair of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Composer Commissioning Program. She has lectured at state and national music conferences on topics such as "Releasing the Music Within" and has published articles that advocate learning music through the active process of its creation.  Currently Pat is a member of the faculty at Santa Clara University, in Santa Clara, California, where she has designed and implemented an innovative aural skills curriculum for the music department. Pat also serves as the Minister of Worship Arts for First Mennonite Church of San Francisco.

Pamela Quist, Assistant Director, Teacher Training Institute, is a composer and has taught composition, piano and music theory for 35 years. A founder and former Director of The Walden School, Pamela was also on its Board of Directors and is a contributing author to The Walden School Musicianship Course: A Manual for Teachers. Pamela Quist joined the music faculty at Santa Clara University in 2001 where she teaches music composition and the upper division theory courses such as counterpoint, form and analysis, and orchestration.  In addition, she teaches Performance and Culture, the history of Western civilization from the viewpoint of the performing arts--theatre, dance and music. Pamela is a graduate of The Peabody Institute with a degree in piano performance and a doctorate in music composition.  Her dissertation exploring the music of Earle Brown is entitled Indeterminate Form in the Work of Earle Brown. During the period from 1976 to 2000, Pamela was a faculty member at various institutions including SUNY Geneseo, Peabody Conservatory, Essex Community College, and the Johns Hopkins University Continuing Studies program.

As a composer, Pamela has written for a wide variety of instrumental and vocal combinations including chamber ensembles, orchestra, solo instrumental, solo piano, vocal and choral music. Her most recent work, Requiem for the People, for mixed choir and orchestra, received its American premiere in June 2006 and was then performed by the Santa Clara Chorale and University Choirs in Prague and Vienna to critical acclaim. Pamela Quist's current composing project is Praha Concerto, a piano concerto for pianist Teresa McCollough.

Drew Thams, Office Manager (San Francisco Administrative Office) and Director of Operations (Teacher Training Institute), is a songwriter and electronic music performer out of San Francisco. In his free time, Drew edits and remixes electronic music, rides a track bicycle, and works as a personal accountant for a law office. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from San Diego State University. 

Leo Wanenchak, Academic Dean, Director of Choral Program, has been associated with The Walden School for 31 years and is a contributing author to The Walden School Musicianship Course: A Manual for Teachers. Leo currently serves as the Assistant Conductor of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society and is on the faculty of the Preparatory Department of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. He is also the Director of the Larks, a women's vocal ensemble, a community service project of the Junior League of Baltimore. Twice being honored A National Foundation for Advancement of the Arts Outstanding Educator, his students have awards from NFAA, MTNA and ASCAP.

As a conductor, keyboard artist, vocalist and narrator, he has performed throughout the USA, including Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, The Academy of Music in Philadelphia, Saint Thomas Church, Riverside Church and Carnegie Hall in New York City and abroad in France, Greece, Holland and Romania. He has been heard on NPR locally with Choral Arts Classics, Backstage at the BSO, Face the Music and featured nationally on Pipe Dreams. Leo is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory and is a member of the American Guild of Organists, the American Choral Directors Association, Music Teacher's National Association and Chorus America. Leo’s music is published by Boosey & Hawkes.

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