Patti Watters, Flute Faire Coordinator

 

Patti Watters is Adjunct Flute Professor at Old Dominion University and Chair of the Instrumental Music at The Governor's School for the Arts where she has taught music theory and flute since the school's inception. She founded the GSA Flute Choir in 1989 and was Director of the Hampton Roads Flute Choir from 1997 - 2002.  She has served as Coordinator of the Hampton Roads Flute Faire for seven years, and performs with the Virginia Symphony, the Virginia Arts Festival, Todd Rosenlieb Dance, and The Commonwealth Trio.

 

In the summer of 2006, Mrs. Watters received a Surdna Foundation Arts Teachers Fellowship to study in Monterchi, Italy, with Ransom Wilson, international flutist and conductor, and Professor of Flute at Yale University.  This was an exciting and challenging ten-day experience, shared with seventeen flutists from all over the world.  In 2007, representing Virginia, Ms. Watters was named one of the “50 Directors Who Make a Difference” in the United States in the School Band and Orchestra Magazine.

 

Mrs. Watters was Principal Flute with the Tidewater Winds for twenty years and Principal Flute with the San Jose (California) Symphony for ten years. She was also Second Flute/Piccolo with the Washington, D.C. Opera Orchestra and the Virginia Beach Pops. She has recorded for the Smithsonian Institution, performed at the 2000 National Flute Association Convention, and performed with orchestras at the Kennedy Center and Wolf Trap.  Mrs. Watters received her Bachelors and Masters with high honors in flute performance from the University of Texas at Austin. Her principal teachers are John Hicks, Paul Renzi, and summer studies with Julius Baker.  She is married to Jim Watters, and has two grown children; Joanne, a nutritional epidemiologist, and Chris, an art conservator.