Cynthia Watson

(On Leave for the 2021 season) Cynthia Watson is the Principal Oboe of the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra, second oboe with the Canton Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Swannanoa Chamber Music Festival.  As a soloist and chamber music performer she is performing this summer (2015) in Kolkata, India with CIM alumna Jennifer Heemstra and flutist George Pope. In 2015 she also made several trips to China, performing in Zhengzhou and Quindao. She has also served as principal oboe of the Albany Symphony, the Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra and as a member the Solaris Woodwind quintet and the IRIS Chamber Orchestra. From 1991-1994 she was a regular member of the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego. She has performed with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Opera, the Rochester Philharmonic and the Virginia Opera Orchestra.

Watson has been on the faculty of the University of Akron School of Music, and Ithaca College. Watson received a Bachelor of Music degree from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with Richard Killmer. She continued her studies at Yale with Ronald Roseman, earning a Master’s Degree. Her playing has been described as "creating a lasting impression with exquisite singing tone" (Times Union, Albany, NY), "an evening of superlative work" and "[a performance] with soulful brilliance" (Schenectady Gazette). She has recorded on Telarc with the Akron Symphony, on Albany Records with the Albany Symphony Orchestra and CBS Masterworks with Wynton Marsalis and the Eastman Wind Ensemble.   She is a contributor to the website 2reed.net