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Mark Watters

conductor

About this Artist

MARK WATTERS is a five-time Emmy Award-winner whose diverse composing credits include Doug's First Movie, Kronk's New Groove, Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas, The Return of Jafar, and Aladdin and the King of Thieves for Disney, The Pebble and the Penguin and All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 for MGM, as well as over 300 episodes of various television series, including The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Tiny Toon Adventures, The New Pink Panther, All Dogs Go to Heaven, 101 Dalmatians, and NBC's A Very Muppet Christmas. In 1996, Watters served as Music Director for the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, for which he received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Musical Direction and an Emmy nomination for the song "Faster, Higher, Stronger," performed by opera legend Jessye Norman and co-written with lyricist Lorraine Feather. He returned to the Olympic podium again as Music Director for the 2002 Salt Lake Olympic Winter Games, where he had the honor of working with the acclaimed Utah Symphony and the Grammy-winning Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Again, he was honored with the Emmy Award for Outstanding Musical Direction. Other credits include the award-winning score to Disney's True Life Adventures, featuring four one-hour nature documentaries. This critically acclaimed series captured the beauty and magnificence as well as the acute harshness of nature around the world. His recent credits include the TV movies Meet the Santas, starring Steve Guttenberg and Crystal Bernard, and The Long Shot, starring Julie Benz and Marsha Mason.

An accomplished conductor, Mark Watters has guest conducted such orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the London Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Utah Symphony, and the Atlanta Symphony. His performances in concert, on CD, and on television have been with such artists as Trisha Yearwood, Sting, Yo-Yo Ma, Faith Hill, Enya, Mel Tormé, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Barry Manilow, and Art Garfunkel. In 2002 he co-conducted the Academy Awards with John Williams.

Watters is a former president of the Society of Composers and Lyricists and has served on the Board of Governors of the Television Academy.

06/07