Watts came from a line of klezmer musicians from what is now
Ukraine and was the daughter of
Jacob Hoffman, a klezmer xylophone player and bandleader from the 1920s who also played with the
Philadelphia Orchestra and
Ballets Russes Orchestra. Her daughter Susan Watts is a klezmer trumpet player and an important figure in the
klezmer revival. She was raised in
Southwest Philadelphia and learned how to play the drums in the basement of her house. Her father would put sticks in her hands and tell her to play while he played xylophone, and she didn't have formal music lessons until she was 12 years old. In 1954, Elaine Hoffman Watts was the first woman percussionist to be accepted and graduate from the
Curtis Institute of Music in
Philadelphia. and was a recipient of a 2007
National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the
National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States' highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. ==References==