Edward H. Walters
Accomplished multi-instrument musician was musical contractor for The National Theater and Wolf Trap Center
Edward H. Walters — a talented musician who played multiple woodwinds and later was a musical contractor for more than 30 years at The National Theater and the Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts — died of brain cancer March 11 at the Village at Rockville, a Rockville nursing center.
The Bethesda resident was 77.
“I began working with Ed more than 40 years ago when I got out of the service,” said Lee Lachman, a fellow woodwind musician. “He was both an excellent player and an excellent friend.”
Edward Henry Walters, son of Roland Walters, a taxi driver, and Edna Mae Green Walters, a teacher and church pianist, was born in Philadelphia and moved to Normal Avenue near Clifton Park in 1956.
While he was an 8th grade student at Clifton Park Junior High School, he began studying the clarinet and by 9th grade won a scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory of Music, now known as The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University, for private lessons in classical music.
After graduating Baltimore City College, a high school, in 1964, he earned his bachelor’s degree in music from Peabody, where he had “mastered the technique of playing four different instruments,” according to a 1973 Evening Sun profile.
“I was following in the footsteps of my brotherin-law who brought me my first instrument and gave me my first lesson,” he told the newspaper.
During high school, he learned to play the saxophone, flute and oboe and began playing with local bands in Baltimore nightclubs and at dances.
His repertoire expanded to include the piccolo and English horn.
With the Vietnam War raging and after teaching music for a year at St. Joseph’s Catholic School, he joined the Navy in 1969.
While serving with the Navy’s Port Authority, a popular music ensemble, Mr. Walters earned a master’s degree in music education in 1972 from The Catholic University of America in Washington.
Discharged from the Navy in 1973, he began teaching elementary school music for Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, and later was on the faculty of Northern Virginia Community College, which included conducting an ensemble.
By the early 1970s, he was playing in the orchestra of the old Painters Mill Music Fair in Owings Mills.
“I like to play as much as I like to teach and prefer combining the two rather than favoring one over the other,” he told The Evening Sun.
He explained in the interview why he didn’t pursue a full-time career in performance.
“I had a taste of being a traveling musician and for awhile it was all right,” he said. “But I know that that just wasn’t what I wanted. I’d rather settle in one area where I can teach and play as I’m doing now.”
His versatility earned him gigs with light opera and rock shows, but his preference was for classical and theater music.
In 1980, Mr. Walters began a more than three decade long career at the University of Maryland, College Park, when he joined the music faculty and played a leading role in the rollout of the university’s Scholars for Arts program.
He retired from Maryland in 2011.
Mr. Walters routinely played in orchestras at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The National Theatre, Wolf Trap, Signature Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, Arena Stage, and in Baltimore at the old Morris A. Mechanic Theatre, Hippodrome and Lyric theaters.
Some of the Broadway touring company shows where he was a member of the pit orchestra included “Cats,” “A Chorus Line,” “Chicago,” “Motown: the Musical” and “The Color Purple,” among many others.
“We played the Mechanic mainly but also The Lyric,” recalled Mr. Lachman. “We were called ‘doublers’ because we played multiple woodwinds and were interchangeable when it came to playing in Broadway musical orchestras.:
“For seven months we played ‘Cats’ at The National, which was eight shows a week, and we had so much fun,” he recalled. “Ed was such a great guy that everyone wanted to work with and for him, because they always knew they were going to have a great time.”
In addition to being a musician and an educator, Mr. Walters was a musical contractor, meaning he hired musicians for places such as the National Theater and Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts.
From 1981 to 2017, he was hired musicians for the inaugural ceremonies of presidents from Ronald W. Reagan to Donald J. Trump, as well as televised events such as “Christmas in Washington.”
During his more than half century career, Mr. Walters worked with luminaires such as Ray Charles, Leonard Bernstein, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, the Four Tops, The Temptations, Johnny Mathis, Dionne Warwick, Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga and the National Symphony Orchestra, family members said.
For years, he regularly preformed with his sister, Jeanette Walters, a Kennedy Center Chamber Players soprano, who died in 1994.
In 1987, brother and sister performed together at New York City’s Carnegie Hall under conductor Philip Tillotson.
Mr. Walters was a member of the board of the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra and the University of Maryland School of Music Board of Visitors.
A runner, he was part of the Montgomery County Road Runners and competed in the 2006 and 2007 annual Marine Corps Marathons.
He was also a volunteer docent at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and enjoyed monthly gatherings of Retired Old Men Eat Out.
Mr. Walters was a communicant of Clinton African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Rockville.
A celebration-of-life service will be held at 11 a.m. April 15 at the University of Maryland Samuel Riggs IV Alumni Center, 7801 Alumni Drive, College Park.
Mr. Walters is survived by his wife of 47 years, the former Wanda Butler, a project manager; a son, Ryan Wendell Walters of Bethesda; a daughter, Kathryn “Brooke” Walters-Conte of Kensington; four brothers, John Walters of Perry Hall, Roland Walters of Bowie, Alfred Walters of Frederick and Daniel Walters of Rosedale; and two grandchildren. An earlier marriage to Helen Bishop ended in divorce.