In Brief: Texas State’s Watson selected for elite Dallas Opera program

Posted by Jayme Blaschke
Office of Media Relations
July 11, 2016

Carolyn Watson, Director of Orchestral Studies at Texas State University, has been selected to participate in the second annual session of the Linda and Mitch Hart Institute for Women Conductors at the Dallas Opera November 26-December 11.

The Dallas Opera launched a new residential program in 2015—one of only three in the world—designed to provide training and career support for distinctively talented women conductors. Female conductors, as well as accomplished women singers, opera coaches, accompanists and instrumentalists with established careers seeking to develop new skills at the podium, were encouraged to apply.

Prior to her arrival at Texas State, Watson held the position of conductor of the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra from 2013-2015.  A Fellow of the American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival, Watson was a major prize winner at the 2012 Emmerich Kálmán International Operetta Conducting Competition in Budapest, Hungary. She has participated in master classes with Peter Eötvös, Yoel Levi and Alex Polishchuk and conducted musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic in Interaktion.  Watson is the recipient of the Brian Stacey Award for Emerging Australian Conductors, the Charles Mackerras Conducting Prize and Opera Foundation Australia’s Bayreuth Opera Award. She holds a Ph.D. in Performance (conducting) from the University of Sydney, where her doctoral thesis was Gesture as Communication: The Art of Carlos Kleiber.