
Patricia Plude
Most recently Patricia has served as Visiting Faculty for the Master of Music Teaching Program (MMT) at Oberlin Conservatory and the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program of the Longy School of Music of Bard College. Prior to this she served for twelve years as a Lecturer in Music at Santa Clara University. During her tenure there she designed and implemented a unique, interactive two-year aural skills curriculum, which employs improvisation and composition at every level. She also created a course in Improvisation, in which students use their bodies, their voices, and their instruments to engage in playful activities that awaken their imagination, build creative vocabulary, deepen their understanding of the creative process, and lead incrementally to fully improvised art in various forms.
From 1977 – 1997 Patricia served as a faculty member of The Walden School, a summer school and festival for young musicians interested in improvisation and composition. In 1997 she assumed the role of Executive Director, a position she held until 2003. During this tenure helped create The Walden School Teacher Training Institute and subsequently served as its Director from 2004 – 2012. She is an author of The Walden School Musicianship Course: A Manual for Teachers and co-authored two Solfège & Rhythms Supplements to this text.
Holding advanced degrees in piano performance from The Peabody Institute and San Francisco Conservatory, Patricia has performed with San Francisco Bay Area new music ensembles such as Earplay and San Francisco Contemporary Players. She has also 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 “Improvisational Music Theory” and “Releasing the Music Within”, and has published articles that advocate learning music through the active process of its creation.
Patricia is certified to teach InterPlay®, a philosophy and practice of improvisation designed to unlock the wisdom of our bodies and in our communities, and she is a former member of the dynamic San Francisco Bay Area performing group, Wing It!, an ensemble dedicated to mounting fully improvised performances combining dance, storytelling, and music. Believing that the arts offer significant opportunities for the expression and deepening of human spirituality, Patricia also serves as the Minister of Worship Arts for First Mennonite Church of San Francisco.

Photo by Aaron Blumenshine
Pamela Layman Quist
Dr. Pamela Quist, a strong advocate for encouraging creativity in all aspects of music education, has taught composition and musicianship for 45 years. A founder and former Director of The Walden School, Dr. Quist was a co-author of The Walden School Musicianship Course: A Manual for Teachers. She served as an adjunct faculty member and Lecturer at Santa Clara University from 2001-2012 where she taught private composition and beginning composition class, all levels of music theory, counterpoint, Performance and Culture, music history, and specialty courses such as Women and Music. During her time at SCU, Dr. Quist designed and implemented a theory curriculum that was closely integrated with Santa Clara’s aural skills program designed by her long-time colleague, Patricia Plude.
Prior to 2001, Pamela Quist taught in several collegiate and conservatory programs while maintaining an active private studio in Baltimore, MD. As a composer, she has written for various chamber ensembles, full orchestra, and solo instruments. Her list of works includes a piano concerto, a tuba concerto and various vocal and choral pieces. Requiem for the People for SATB Chorus and Orchestra was enthusiastically received in 2006 when it was performed in Prague and Vienna following its premiere performance at the Mission in Santa Clara, CA.
A graduate of The Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University with a degree in piano performance and advanced degrees in music composition, Pamela Quist was a faculty member at SUNY Geneseo, Peabody Conservatory, Peabody Preparatory Department, Essex Community College, and in the Johns Hopkins University Continuing Studies program. During her years of study at Peabody Conservatory, Pamela came to know and admire composer Earle Brown and his music, thus leading to her doctoral dissertation, Indeterminate Form in the Work of Earle Brown (1984). This association influenced Quist’s own compositions by increasing her interest in improvisation as a tool for expression in structurally indeterminate works and also in pieces with specific macrostructures.
Composition students of Pamela Quist’s have been winners in the BMI and ASCAP competitions, the Delius High School Composition Contest, the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts competition and the MTNA National Student competition (’75, ’79, ‘83, ‘86, ‘89, ’90, and ’94). For five years from 1990 through 1994, her students were winners in the Baltimore Choral Arts Young Composer Project having their choral works performed in public concert and broadcast locally. In addition many of Quist’s students have gone on to attain higher degrees from universities and conservatories and have active careers in music.
Dr. Quist’s current private studio is in San Jose, CA where she encourages students ranging in age from 10 to adult to create original music through improvisation and composition. Since 2011 Pam Quist has also been the director of a choral ensemble at Peninsula Bible Church Willow Glen. In all areas of her teaching, composing and choral directing, Pamela Quist uses the educational philosophy and the solid approach to building skills and deep musical comprehension originated by her mentor, Grace Newsom Cushman.

Leo Wanenchak
Leo Wanenchak brings a dynamic energy to his teaching that is inspiring and truly engaging. With his unique expertise, he has contributed countless concrete and inventive training methods to the realm of choral education. As a graduate of Peabody Conservatory’s music education department, Leo brings decades of training and experiential knowledge to his teaching and to the mentoring of other music teachers. He is especially skilled in discovering and combining those educational techniques that work best for a particular class or student. In so doing, he is representative of the skillful musical and pedagogical eclecticism encouraged by Grace Cushman and demonstrated by those who have continued and promoted her work to the present day.
Formerly the Academic Dean and Director of Walden School’s Choral Program, Leo is currently the Assistant Conductor of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society and teaches a weekly “Sound & Time” class for sharpening choral skills. He has assisted in preparing the choir for performances with Dave Brubeck and his quartet, Peter Schickele, Kathy Mattea and the Baltimore Symphony. He is the Director of the Larks, a well known woman’s vocal ensemble of the Junior League of Baltimore. Leo has held many important conducting and/or directing positions, including Director of Music Ministries at Central Presbyterian Church in Baltimore; Musical Director of the Children’s Chorus of Maryland; Director of the Maryland Camerata and guest conductor of the Peabody Children’s Chorus and the Johns Hopkins Choral Society. In order to raise the level of their singers’ fundamental musical skills and understanding, The Baltimore Symphony Chorus invited Leo Wanenchak to teach a weekly class in Theory and Aural Skills.
Leo has given workshops and taught in a multitude of different environments including a large private studio of Musicianship, piano, and vocal students. He has lectured to Elderhostel classes, taught Peabody Preparatory Musicianship classes, and directed an exciting collaborative program for musicians and dancers, the Peabody Arts for Talented Youth program. Leo has led a number of workshops for the schools, churches, theater and community musical groups including the American Guild of Organists and the Chorister’s Guild. As a keyboard artist he has performed with the Baltimore Choral Arts Society, the Paris Chamber Orchestra and the Peabody Camerata, and his own music is published by Boosey and Hawkes.

Tom Lopez

Brooke Joyce
As an educator, Brooke has served as composer-in-residence at Luther College, the Water City Chamber Orchestra (Oshkosh, Wisconsin), Lutheran Summer Music (LSM), and at festivals and workshops at colleges and universities throughout the Midwest. As part of his work with LSM, he designed a three-year musicianship curriculum using the rich repertoire of liturgical music from the Lutheran tradition. At Luther College, his composition studio often collaborates with other departments to create evening-length performances. This fall, students worked with an early music ensemble to create a program called “Shakespeare through Song and Sound,” in which six new compositions were created that either set Shakespeare’s words or responded to his poetry. Next spring, the studio will collaborate on a silent film score to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
Brooke is the recipient of the Joseph Bearns Prize, the Wayne Peterson Prize, the Darius Milhaud Award, and many citations from the National Federation of Music Clubs and ASCAP. He earned degrees in composition from Princeton University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Lawrence University, and attended summer courses with Joan Tower, Magnus Lindberg, and Alun Hoddinott. He lives with his wife, Jennifer, and son, Keegan, in a quiet neighborhood in Decorah, a small town in northeast Iowa.

Marshall Bessières
