Sarah Watts studied clarinet at the Royal Academy of Music with Angela Malsbury and Victoria Soames Samek. She then specialised in bass clarinet and continued her studies at the Rotterdam Conservatorium with Henri Bok, funded by the Countess of Munster Musical Trust and a Leverhulme Trust Studentship. Sarah was awarded the Exxon prize for the best classical music student in Rotterdam.
Sarah has gained an international reputation as an artist, teacher and researcher of the bass clarinet. She has performed solo repertoire across the UK, Ireland, Asia, Europe and the Americas, with noteworthy composers including Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Piers Hellawell and William Sweeney writing works for her.
Sarah is Director in Performance at the University of Sheffield, where she also teaches clarinet and bass clarinet. Sarah hosts bass clarinet and clarinet courses on the Isle of Raasay in Scotland and has led many wind chamber music courses in the UK and France. Sarah has given workshops on bass clarinet technique at many establishments around the world and was bass clarinet tutor at RNCM from 2012 - 2022.
Sarah performs with Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble, rarescale and SCAW. She has completed a PhD in bass clarinet multiphonic analysis at Keele University and has published ‘Spectral Immersions; A Comprehensive Guide to the Theory and Practice of Bass Clarinet Multiphonics’ via Metropolis publishers. Sarah is an Henri Selmer Paris artist, a Vandoren UK artist and a Silverstein Ligature artist. In 2016, she was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, London.
