Elaine Hoffman Watts
American klezmer drummer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Elaine Hoffman Watts (May 25, 1932 – September 25, 2017[1]) was a klezmer drummer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
May 25, 1932
Elaine Hoffman Watts | |
|---|---|
Watts in 2007 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Elaine Hoffman May 25, 1932 |
| Died | September 25, 2017 (aged 85) |
| Genre | Klezmer |
| Occupations | Musician, educator |
| Instruments | Drums, percussion |
Biography
Watts came from a line of klezmer musicians from what is now Ukraine and was the daughter of Jacob Hoffman,[2] a klezmer xylophone player and bandleader from the 1920s who also played with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Ballets Russes Orchestra. Her daughter Susan Watts is a klezmer trumpet player and an important figure in the klezmer revival. She was raised in Southwest Philadelphia and learned how to play the drums in the basement of her house.[3] Her father would put sticks in her hands and tell her to play while he played xylophone, and she didn't have formal music lessons until she was 12 years old.[4]
In 1954, Elaine Hoffman Watts was the first woman percussionist to be accepted and graduate from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.[1] After graduation she was hired as a timpanist in the New Orleans Symphony, and over the years played in other orchestras and jazz groups, including sitting in for Duke Ellington and Count Basie.[3]
Beginning in 1998, she was a percussion teacher at KlezKamp, and she taught percussion in the Philadelphia area beginning in the mid-1960s. She was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 2000[5] and was a recipient of a 2007 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States' highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.[3][6]