After having toured with Don Elliott and then Lionel Hampton, Woldin attended Black Mountain College, studying painting with Josef Albers and composition with Heinrich Jalowetz.
He then attended the University of New Mexico to study 12-tone music with Ernst Krenek (the composer of Johnny Spielt Auf.
[1] Woldin then joined the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop, where he met and began collaborating with Robert Brittan.
There they would begin work on a musical version of Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin In The Sun.
[1] The Prince and The Pauper, written with Marc Elliot, was based on Mark Twain's novel of the same name, and it ran at the Peninsula Civic Light Opera in San Mateo, California.