Robert Lee Watt

Robert Lee Watt
Born	(1948-01-15) January 15, 1948 (age 76) Neptune Township, New Jersey
Genres	Classical
Instrument(s)	French horn

Musical artist

Robert Lee Watt (born January 15, 1948) is an American horn player and the first African-American French hornist hired by a major symphony orchestra in the United States.^[1]^[2]

Born in Neptune Township, New Jersey, his father was a jazz trumpet player who did not approve of his choice of instrument—feeling Watt's background and race would make a career with the horn impossible.^[3] Nevertheless, Watt won a scholarship to the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and continued studies at California Institute of the Arts.

In 1970 at the age of twenty-two he was hired by Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic to play assistant principal horn where he remained for 37 years before retiring in 2008.^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b "It's his horn of plenty". Los Angeles Times. 20 January 2008. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
^ "'The Black Horn': Blowing Past Classical Music's Color Barriers". National Public Radio. 9 November 2014. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
^ "Robert Lee Watt Defies Racial Barriers in Classical Music with Instrument for 'Thin-Lipped White Boys'". Atlanta Blackstar. 11 November 2014. Retrieved 31 July 2015.