Type: Book

Walden holds (tightly) an A.R.C.T. (solo performance) in piano from the Royal Conservatory of Music and a B.A. (Honours Music) and an M.A. (Musicology) from the University of Toronto. He taught for a decade with the Toronto Board Of Education, and is currently a professor at George Brown College Theatre School. Privately he has instructed innumerable students in piano, theory and composition over more than 30 years. .

In addition to work in film and television, his roles for the Toronto stage have included productions of Cats (as Old Deuteronomy, the "grand- father cat") and Les Misèrables (as the wicked innkeeper M. Thenardier). He has played Barbara Hamilton's husband in the Canadian Opera Company production of The Merry Widow and "zee funny fat guy" for so many Toronto Operetta Theatre Company shows he has lost count (including one production of The Gypsy Baron) in which he shared the stage with a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig - who got most of the laughs).

Walden is the author of Music Theory for the Bored and Confused, co-author with Lois Birkenshaw-Fleming of the children's book The Goat with the Bright Red Socks and author of a new theory series called Learning the Language of Music.

As a composer, Walden has written a plethora of educational scrap for a wide variety of books used in the school system, and a number of cabaret shows including the critically acclaimed A Night at the Grand with CFMX Luncheon Date host Arlene Meadows and his cousin (honest­ ly!) Howard Baer. He was music director and wrote original music for Greg Finnegan's Case of the Curious Cabaret. He has also written music for film and television.

Classical music, however, has always been his first love and, despite his academic credentials and vast teaching experience, he remains at heart a sim- ple man and well qualified to speak (or write, as in this case) to the general public and its ear (or eye) about the music he loves (and hopes they do too).

Perhaps it was his chance performance with a pig that led him to choose the rural world of Chezlee, Ont., as the bucolic setting in which he delves into the problems of concert going. "Where angels fear to tread" is Walden's stomping ground, and he's no fool.

Enjoy the book!