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"Voice Of The Met" Speaks To Eastman Students At Their Commencement

Jonathan Tichler/Metropolitan Opera

The speaker at the Eastman School of Music Commencement ceremony this past weekend is an Eastman alum who is heard around the world on the long-running Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcasts.  Mary Jo Heath is “the voice of the Met”  - a career that she started while she was a student in Rochester, which she recounted in an interview with WXXI's Marianne Carberry. 

Heath was working on her doctorate in music theory at the Eastman School of music when she saw an ad on a bulletin board for part time radio announcers, and figured: why not?  

"Well, I listened to the Met Broadcasts on Saturday afternoon anyway, I might as well be the one person in town who is getting paid to do it. " she recalls. 

"And there I was for the next six years, Saturday afternoons, grading my freshman and sophomore music theory papers, listening to the Met broadcasts, but c'mon, never dreaming that I would end up that I would end up at the Metropolitan Opera as their radio hosts." 

After she finished her doctorate at Eastman, Mary Jo Heath moved to New York City, where she found other part-time jobs in radio and worked in the classical record industry. She then landed a job as Senior Radio Producer for the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts, charged with revamping and updating the sound of the long-running series. 

The Met Radio broadcastsare legendary - they've been heard on radio stations Saturday afternoons (including on WXXI 91.5) for 85 years – live, without a safety net. That live experience is part of what makes the broadcasts special, according to Heath: "It has to be live - people appreciate that they're hearing it as it happens. And anything can, and often does, happen." 

She was producer of these live broadcasts for 9 years, and this past season took over as the host – only the fourth announcer in the history of the Metropolitan Opera on the radio.  

Mary Jo Heath was the commencement speaker on Sunday at the Eastman School of Music, where she was also presented with the school’s distinguished alumni award. And she has some encouraging words for students and parents who are nervous about what’s next after graduation from music school. 

"There’s no more wonderful thing than to have your life in music if you're so inclined and you're passionate.  There's always room and you can always find a way. You can do it, and work your way through and up and around. Face it, not everyone's going to be a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, but there are lots of wonderful ways for us…I still call myself one of the worker bees of classical music world. There’s lots of ways to get out there and do your thing." 

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