Role(s):
Specialties:
Affiliations:
Mr. Alfred Watkins has been part of Music for All in many capacities – on the advisory committee charged with designing the format of the National Concert Band Festival, as a summer symposium clinician, and as a fall marching band adjudicator. As a teacher, he attended BOA’s Weekend with the Experts series, and his bands have performed at the Music for All National Festival and BOA Regional and Grand National marching band championships, the latter of which they were named national champion in 1998 and 2002. Mr. Watkins is a native of Jackson, Georgia and has been Director of Bands at Lassiter High School since 1982. Mr. Watkins received his Bachelor of Music Education with honors from Florida A&M University in 1976.
Mr. Watkins was named “Teacher of the Year” in 1978 and a “Star Teacher” five times. He pioneered the concept of the Symphonic Band Camp, a three-day post-marching season intensive study of symphonic literature. Mr. Watkins also conducts the Cobb Wind Symphony, an all-adult community band in the Atlanta area.
Mr. Watkins is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi Honorary Band Fraternity, National Band Association, Phi Beta Mu National School Bandmaster Fraternity, Black Music Caucus, Music Educators National Conference and the Georgia Music Educators Association and the NAACP. In 1987, Mr. Watkins was selected as a charter member of the Florida A&M University Gallery of Distinguished Alumni (Hall of Fame) and in 2005, Mr. Watkins was elected into the prestigious American Bandmasters Association.
In 1996, Mr. Watkins was Associate Director for the Atlanta Olympic Marching Band that performed in the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta. He and his wife Rita live in Marietta with their two sons, Christopher and Jonathan.