Stanley Walden was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1932. A graduate of Queens College, he studied composition privately with Ben Weber, a student of Schoenberg. As a clarinetist he performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble and many others. He was a faculty member at the Juilliard School, The State University at Purchase, Sarah Lawrence College and guest composer at the Eastman School, S.M.U. and Yale. He was musical assistant to Martha Graham, Jerome Robbins and Jose Limon. In 1990 he founded the Department of Musical Theater at the Berlin Universität der Künste, which he led until 2003. Among his commissions are Invisible Cities for the Philadelphia Orchestra under Erich Leinsdorf, Weewis for the Joffrey Ballet, the chamber symphony After Auschwitz for Musica Viva under Sydney Hodkinson (which Walden also conducted with the Potsdam Philharmonic, and the Budapest Chamber Symphony in Cividale). Circus is recorded on Lousiville Records under Jorge Mester, and was also played by the Chicago Symphony under Seizi Ozawa and in Cleveland, under Louis Lane. He has written chamber and solo works for Jan DeGaetani (Some Changes/Albany Records), Reri Grist, Robert Levin, Gilbert Kalish, Joel Krosnick and Carole Cowan.

Among Walden’s many musical-theater works are the operas Liebster Vater for the Bremen Stadtheater (also in Berlin, Weimar and New York), Bachs Letzte Oper (Erfurt) and Doctor Faustus Lights The Lights (Cologne and New York) and the musicals Oh! Calcutta! (with Jacques Levy and The Open Window), performed throughout the world, Miami Lights (Miami, Palo Alto), Back Country (Boston), Café Mitte (with Volker Ludwig, Grips Theater Berlin [Sony Records]), Die Bettleroper (Berlin). Also Endangered Species (Martha Clarke, BAM), The Serpent and Mutation Show (The Open Theater) and The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Arena Theater, Washington, D.C.).

Alongside his activity as composer and conductor, Walden has participated as actor and director in over fifty stage productions in the United States and Europe, many with the director George Tabori. Among his film scores are Desperado City (Camera d’or, Cannes) and Frohes Fest (Mannheim Film Prize). Together with his wife Barbara he published the standard instructional text Life Upon The Wicked Stage.