Patricia Plude

Patricia Plude, pianist and educator, a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory and also the San Francisco Conservatory, is the immediate past Executive Director of The Walden School. Serving in that role for seven years, and as a faculty member before that, Pat gained broad experience conducting the teacher training classes offered to Walden's diverse and talented faculty. In addition, as one certified to teach InterPlay¨, a philosophy and practice of improvisation based in creativity, community, and change, and 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, Patricia Plude knows how to put actions to her words concerning the importance of spontaneous, improvisational, music-making!

Pat has also demonstrated her active support of new music by performing with San Francisco Bay Area contemporary music ensembles, Earplay, Alternate Currents and the San Francisco Contemporary Players. She has lectured coast to coast on topics such as "Releasing the Music Within" and has published articles that advocate learning music through the active process of its creation. Among other professional accomplishments, as a member of the faculty at Santa Clara University she has designed and implemented a new aural skills curriculum for the music department.

After more than twenty-five years of affiliation with The Walden School, Pat is honored to be Director of The Teacher Training Institute, through which Walden's innovative and proven methods are being made available to a broader community of music educators.

Patricia Plude
Director, Teacher Training Institute

Dr. Pamela Quist

Dr. Quist studied the Musicianship Course with its architect, Grace Newsom Cushman. She has been associated for 35 years with this unique approach to teaching music skills and the creative treatment of basic music materials. As a composer and teacher, Pam Quist was a co-founder of The Walden School in 1972, and has dedicated her teaching career to promoting Walden's educational philosophies and techniques.

During this career she has taught on the faculties of The State University of New York at Geneseo, The Peabody Conservatory of Music, The Peabody Preparatory School, Essex Community College, The Johns Hopkins Continuing Studies Program, The Evergreen Program of Johns Hopkins University, and currently, Santa Clara University. Pam Quist's active private composition studio in Baltimore, Maryland produced many award-winning student compositions entered into competitions such as the MTNA, BMI, and Delius. Her students also frequently received successful performances of their compositions by musical groups such as the Baltimore Choral Arts Society.

As a former Director of The Walden School, Pam Quist was instrumental in designing the program for each year and taught on the faculty every summer through 1994. For a number of years Pam has been poised to turn her energy toward training teachers in Walden's innovative approach, and she considers The Walden Institute's workshops an exciting opportunity to fulfill a vital need in the music education community.

Dr. Pamela Quist
Assistant Director,
Teacher Training Institute

Dr. Tom Lopez

Dr. Lopez is the newest member of the faculty team who will teach in our Workshops. He brings high expertise in the computer music field to The Walden School as Director of Walden's Computer Music Program. He has discovered ways to relate technology in the form of computer music and composition to Walden's core Musicianship course and is contributing these ideas to the first edition of the Manual for Teachers.

Tom Lopez has been the recipient of awards from the NEA, Meet the Composer, and ASCAP to name only a few, and was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship as Composer-in- Residence at the Centre International de Recherche Musical in Nice, France. It is clear that music creation is a high priority to Dr. Tom Lopez, and he has shared his views as a lecturer at conferences and Festivals around the world.

Music composed by Tom Lopez has been highly acclaimed, recorded, and performed worldwide including such prestigious locations as The Kennedy Center. Tom's sessions, which explore technology's potential for enhancing creative work in the classroom, are always a highlight of our workshops.

Dr. Tom Lopez
Composer
Assistant Professor
Computer Music
Digital Arts at
Oberlin Conservatory

Leo Wanenchak

An accomplished organist, choral director, and teacher, Leo Wanenchak is Academic Dean & Director of the Choral Program of The Walden School. His experience with The Walden School Musicianship Course dates back more than two decades when he and Patricia Plude received their intensive training as new Walden faculty with Walden co-founders Pamela Quist and David Hogan. The tradition of mentorship within the Walden program is exemplified in the way this wonderful Course has been handed down so carefully through three teaching generations, and Leo is an important contributor to the current training of a fourth generation.

Leo Wanenchak brings a dynamic energy to his teaching that is inspiring and truly engaging, and his particular expertise has contributed concrete and inventive methods into the realm of Choral education at Walden School. Outside of Walden, Leo has held many important conducting / directing positions, including Director of Music Ministries at Central Presbyterian Church, heading a program with over 150 participants for nineteen years, Musical Director of the Children's Chorus of Maryland, and guest conductor of the Peabody Children's Chorus and the Johns Hopkins Choral Society. He is currently the Assistant Conductor of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society and recently assisted them in preparation of a performance and recording with jazz musician, Dave Brubeck and his quartet.

As Leo assists in training a fourth generation of teachers in The Musicianship Course, he is representative of the skillful musical and pedagogical eclecticism encouraged by Grace Cushman and all those who have followed in her footsteps. As a graduate of Peabody Conservatory and also its music education department, Leo Wanenchak brings many years of training and knowledge to his teaching. He is especially skilled in finding and combining those education techniques that work best for his students.

Leo has taught in a multitude of different environments including private piano lessons, lectures to Elderhostel classes, Peabody Preparatory Musicianship classes, and, recently, offering a workshop with Bobby McFerrin to students of the Peabody Arts for Talented Youth program.

Leo Wanenchak
Academic Dean
and Director
of the Choral Program
The Walden School