Biography
As a composer and performer, Kelly is drawn to music by living composers, where genres are fluid and musicians are encouraged to bring unique, personal contributions to each performance. As a bandleader, she has released two albums of original music, From the Shelf (CD Baby, 2006) and dear and bare (Phonector, 2008). Her composition the (un)ravelingis featured on Music in Circles.
She has performed and recorded with artists across a wide range of musical genres, including Becca Stevens, Jacob Collier, Kurt Elling, Barry Manilow, Greg Osby, and Reggie Workman. Kelly has contributed on flute and alto flute on numerous films with the Deutsche Filmorchester Babelsberg and regularly performs in chamber ensembles Darkhorse Musik Ensemble and Ensemble Menajiri.
Kelly studied under the artistry and mentorship of Jim Walker at the University of Southern California and later with soloist Göran Marcusson in Stockholm. After completing her Bachelor’s egree, she continued her studies at The New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music in New York City, where she focused on composition and improvisation under the tutelage of saxophonist, Greg Osby.
Kelly Watson Woelffer is a versatile flutist, composer, and educator based in Boston, Massachusetts. Following almost two decades in Berlin, she recently returned to the United States. As flutist and founder of hear now berlin., a contemporary classical sextet at the forefront of Europe’s new music scene, she has helped shape innovative performances and recordings of music by living composers.
The ensemble released its critically acclaimed debut album Music in Circles (Backlash Music) in 2023, which received international recognition for its inventive and wide-ranging sound world.
A devoted educator, Kelly maintains a thriving private studio and serves on the faculty at Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge and at the Rivers School Conservatory, where she works in both the Conservatory Program and the Suzuki Department.
She has extensive Suzuki teacher training through both the Suzuki Association of the Americas and the European Suzuki Association and has been a guest teacher at Suzuki institutes in the United States and Europe, as well as giving masterclasses at colleges and conservatories nationwide.
In performance, Kelly is guided by the act of giving; seeking to offer audiences the beauty, power, and fragile vulnerability that shape our shared human experience.
In 2024 Kelly was named a Wm. S. Haynes Artist and plays a 14K custom gold flute which she discovered with Adam Workman at Flutistry Boston.