Owen Watkins

In conjunction with his performing career Owen has worked for twenty years as an instrument builder and instrument technician, working for eight years at von Huene Workshop in Boston making recorders. He has collaborated with Joel Robinson in New York City making historical clarinets and basset horn. During 2014 to 15 he was woodturner and instrument maker at Morgan Recorders in Daylesford Victoria, before working for five years as a technician at Sax & Woodwind (and Brass) in Sydney. During this time he established his own workshop repairing woodwind instruments and making oboes based on an original by J.W. Kenigsperger in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

A graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium on recorder and clarinet, Owen also studied at Sweelinck Conservatorium in the Netherlands with Walter van Hauwe on recorder, and in the United States at Longy School of Music, and Boston University where he graduated with a Masters of Music on baroque oboe.

Owen has performed on recorder, baroque oboe, and early clarinet with many period instrument ensembles in the United States including Boston Camerata, Boston Baroque, the Handel and Haydn Society, The Washington Bach Consort, Ars Lyrica Houston, Arcadia Players, Opera Lafayette, The Four nations Ensemble, and as a clarinetist Owen has performed and recorded with Cambini Winds, a wind quintet dedicated to 19th century works for wind quintet.