I am a flute teacher and performer, former elementary music teacher, former college music teacher, and perpetual student living in Louisville, Kentucky. I love learning new things and sharing that love of learning with others. In addition to teaching and playing flute, I love travel, gardening, and caring for my cats, GT and Doro.
- Flute Instructor, The Flute Studio
- Flute Instructor/Sectional Coach, Area band programs
- Doctor of Musical Arts, University of Georgia
- Registered Suzuki Instructor, Suzuki Association of the Americas
- Extensive teaching and performing experience
Tony Watson has more than forty years studio flute teaching experience. His students have earned top honors, winning concerto competitions and seats in youth orchestras, All-State Bands, and university orchestras. In addition to individual lessons, he is in great demand as flute sectional instructor with many area band programs including the Youth Performing Arts School, Louisville Male High School, Jeffersontown High School, Carrithers Middle School, Echo Trail Middle School, Westport Middle School, and Barret Traditional Middle School.
Dr. Watson is an active performer, having appeared in pit orchestras at Kentucky Country Day School, CenterStage Theatre and the Sacred Heart School of Performing Arts and on stage in Whitney Hall and the Brown Theatre with the Louisville Orchestra. He has also performed with the Kentucky Opera, the Louisville Master Chorale and the Evansville Philharmonic. In 2023 and 2024, Dr. Watson was selected by audition to perform with the Professional Flute Choir at the convention of the National Flute Association. Other collaborators have included Actors Theatre, Squallis Puppeteers and Les Six chamber ensemble.
Formerly principal flutist with the Colorado Gilbert and Sullivan Festival (CO) and the DeKalb Wind Symphony (GA), he has performed with the Jefferson Symphony (CO), Orchestra Atlanta, the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra, the woodwind quintet Montage and with the Pandean Players Wind Chamber Ensemble. In 2000-01, he was featured as flute soloist with the Atlanta Boy Choir on their tours of the Canadian Maritime Provinces and throughout Italy, including performances at the Papal Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, St Mark’s Basilica in Venice and St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. In 2006, he was a winner of the National Flute Association’s Convention Performers Competition in Pittsburgh.
Tony Watson earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Flute Performance with a minor in Music Education from the University of Georgia, the Master of Music degree in Flute Performance from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education from Valdosta State University. His dissertation, The Flute Pedagogy of Toshio Takahashi, surveys the teaching technique of the Suzuki Flute School author. In addition, Dr. Watson completed extensive teacher training at the East Tennessee Suzuki Flute Institute and the Talent Education Institute in Matsumoto, Japan where he studied with Toshio Takahashi. His teachers have included Angeleita Floyd, Geoffrey Gilbert, Carl Hall, Angela Jones-Reus, Peter Lloyd and Toshio Takahashi.
As the National Flute Association’s Masterclass Reporter from 2004 to 2008, Tony Watson helped to bring the Masterclass listing to its electronic form and published the Masterclass listing in Flutist Quarterly for five years. He has presented on various flute-related topics at the National Flute Convention, The Kentucky Flute Society, the Indiana Music Educators Association Conference and the Kentucky Music Educators Virtual Professional Development Conference.
A founding advisor and past President of the Atlanta Flute Club, Dr. Watson is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Flute Society of Kentucky and served as Program Chair for the Kentucky Flute Festival held at the University of Louisville, January 16-17, 2015.