Sunday afternoon, the Open Campus Center of the College of Du Page is deserted. Deep inside the inconspicuous building off 22nd Street in Glen Ellyn, Scott Thomas wears a contented smile as he presides over a panel of buttons, lights and microphones.
The two-minute news feed is over, his detailed introduction is over and now, via WDCB`s 5,000-watt signal, Thomas is filling 28 square miles with grand opera.
On this Sunday, his little cubicle of electronics is throbbing with one of his favorites, Richard Wagner`s ”The Flying Dutchman.” WDCB (90.9 on your FM dial) is a small public radio station, meaning there are no commercials, absolutely none. All week, the station dispenses a variety of offerings from philosophy to science along with mostly music with the accent on jazz, blues and the big band sound.
But on Sundays, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Scott Thomas spins the turntables with the finest classical recordings by the world`s great artists. The lead-in slot from 10 a.m. to noon is called ”Classical Confab,” followed by the three-hour ”Opera Festival.”
”Stumble on it when you`re roaming the dial and you`ll think you`ve got one of the glitzy 50,000-watt Chicago stations,” said fan Rose Preston of Lombard.
Opera currently is enjoying a renaissance with more devotees than ever.
”Maybe it`s because there`s so little in pop culture that has intrinsic value of its own,” said Thomas.
He likes to persuade people who think they don`t like opera to try it, become familiar with it. ”Opera was once the spectator sport of the century,” he tells them.
An encounter with Thomas, 38, erases any preconceived notions of classical musicians or fans as pretentious wimps. Thomas, who resembles a cross between a Chicago Bears fullback and a younger, slimmer Luciano Pavarotti, is himself a professional musician, although not a singer. Not that he couldn`t be a singer-his resonant tonal quality is to his program`s success what Sam Ramey`s basso cantante is to ”Mephistofeles.”
”He`s a marvelous resource,” said Sid Fryer, general manager of the station. ”We`re all jealous of his voice. And his delivery and presence.”
”I`d hate to try to put on our classical segment without Scott,” said Mary Pat LaRue, programming coordinator, another key member of WDCB`s full-time professional staff. ”He`s been with us about 10 years, one of our longest running volunteers.”
Volunteers?
”Many of our people are volunteers,” said Scott Wager, operations and production coordinator. ”We`re lucky to have dedicated personalities like Scott Thomas who are willing to give their time and talent.”
Five hours straight every Sunday without pay is a long stint but Thomas calls it ”a commitment to the public.”
Part of that commitment consists of providing insights into the historical background and what`s happening in each act of the chosen opera as well as a little about the composer. Thomas does more than read librettos; he researches material from a number of sources. Before Sir Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony conjure up the ghost ship The Flying Dutchman, Thomas supplies listeners with the colorful details of setting and action the music will portray, plus the little aside that the idea came to Wagner during a severe storm at sea as he attempted to sail away from his creditors.
Thomas was not always fond of opera. He said he ”got serious about music through Fred Lewis,” his instrumental teacher and band director at Fenton High School in Bensenville. After settling on the clarinet as his special instrument, Thomas went to the American Conservatory in Chicago, where it was suggested that he become a singer, a bass.
”It`s funny, I used to be a boy soprano,” he said.
He still hasn`t ruled out the possibility of singing, but his passion is undeniably the clarinet, and he says he has no regrets.
In the mid `70s he was very satisfied playing principal clarinet with the Chicago Philharmonic, freelancing with wind ensembles, theater shows, doing a little teaching and working at Edmund Nielsen Woodwinds as an apprentice repairman specializing in double reeds.
”But I needed a full-time profession. There are only 88 positions for principal clarinet in the country that pay a living wage. You`ve got to have another job.”
He took and passed a Civil Service test and went to Oklahoma City to train as an air traffic controller. ”I was always interested in aviation. My father was a bomber pilot in WWII.”
After completing his training, he was assigned to Midway Airport. The work was exciting; he thought he had found his niche. He also met his wife, Mary Ellen Glynn, then a flight instructor at Midway, now a homemaker and faithful Sunday listener. They have no children.
In August 1981, right after he became fully checked out as an air traffic controller, the famous strike happened. The president of the United States fired all the striking controllers. So, actually, Thomas got into radio because of Ronald Reagan.
Newly married, realizing he had to start all over with a new profession, Thomas enrolled in COD`s data processing school. While there, he began broadcasting on the college-owned station, WDCB, as a student aide, which paid a small honorarium for the two years he attended classes.
”They asked if I could do opera and I said yes. I grew up listening to classical radio and knew the format. I had even auditioned at WNIB in `81. They liked my voice but didn`t have an opening.”
As his role at WDCB expanded, so did his feeling for opera. As an instrumentalist, the music had always appealed to him, though not as much as ensemble and chamber music. Soon he became interested in the singing, the theater and staging of opera.
That was 10 years ago. In the beginning, the broadcast slots were not all live, not all on Sunday. LaRue devised the long Sunday format, which has been very well received. Now Thomas has free rein. He makes the selections, buys recordings, assembles the commentary. He will also take requests. You can call him at 708-790-9322 while he`s on the air.
Thomas` day job is with Spraying Systems Co. in Wheaton. Since 1984, he has been programming supervisor of the company`s applications production group. He now lives in Naperville.
At night, he`s often found on stage playing any of several clarinets with an orchestra in the Chicago area. On Nov. 24, he will play principal clarinet (always a soprano clarinet) with the Bensenville Symphonic Wind Ensemble. On Dec. 7, he will be in Wisconsin playing principal clarinet with the Oshkosh Symphony Orchestra.
Harold Bauer, director of Du Page`s New Philharmonic and the Fox River Valley Symphony, said, ”Scott is a rarity, an exceptionally nice human being and an exceptionally knowledgeable musician, one of the finest you`re likely to find anywhere. He plays bass clarinet in both my groups. That`s how I met him. I needed a bass clarinetist-they`re very hard to find-and someone told me about Scott. When he`s with us, (not all programs call for the part) he`s easy to spot: on the audience`s left, second row of woodwinds, the dark hair and beard and the long, ungainly wind instrument.”
The bass clarinet may make Thomas easy to spot in the orchestra, but getting a clear fix on who`s in the audience isn`t as simple. Thomas doesn`t think there is a typical classical music fan, and except for callers to the studio, WDCB has little data on the subject. However, Jim Barker, sales manager for WFMT, one of Chicago`s commercial classical stations, said WFMT`s weekly local audience of 350,000 is almost equally divided, half men, half women; 80 percent are college graduates, 40 percent have post-graduate degrees, most are in high income brackets and are between 35 and 54 years old. WFMT, currently marking 40 years on the air, reaches out 90 miles in all directions locally plus 37 states via cable.
So a high schooler lying in the grass at Naperville`s Riverwalk on a recent Sunday listening to Puccini`s opera ”Turandot” is not typical. He likes rock and rap for weekdays but says, ”After church, the WDCB music makes the rest of Sunday seem kinda special, too. I really like the sound of this Thomas guy. And he does a neat job with the Italian and German words. I`m studying German, so I can appreciate that.”
However, the student says he would not appreciate the flak he would get from his athlete peers if he gives his name.
Inga Kaminsky, 65, of Chicago gives her name willingly. A retired teacher/librarian who was born in Germany, Kaminsky also appreciates Thomas`
German. He`s the only one who can lure her away from her favorite station, WNIB.
”But when Scott Thomas isn`t there it`s total disaster. I wish they`d give him another hour for the longer operas,” she said. ”He really ought to be a professional announcer.”
Thomas is not multilingual. He works diligently on his pronunciation of the foreign titles and composers` names. He says his wife, who helps him with the French, is not yet satisfied with his rendition of that.
Katrina Janowsky of Downers Grove, another of Thomas`s listeners, is younger than the WFMT profile.
”I`m hooked on the stories,” she said. ” `Opera Festival` is the only program around where you can hear the plot before you listen to the music. It makes it more enjoyable. I`ve never called in a request. I`m happy with what he`s been playing.”
She does have a complaint, however: ”Driving west you lose the station pretty quick.” Sometimes she tells her boyfriend, ”Turn around, I want to catch the rest.”
Thomas has actually found men more receptive than women to classical music, even those with no musical background. ”Once they see you`re pretty normal like them, they`re willing to listen to what you have to say about it, to give it a chance when you remind them the world`s greatest thoughts are expressed in music.”
And as he expresses it, ”Opera is the perfect medium for both the mythological and the fundamental truths, the basic emotional aspects of being human. In any other medium, much of that would become out of date, melodramatic, stilted and corny. But opera music doesn`t lose its force.”
Mike Hrivnak of Carol Stream is partial to instrumental music and likes the ”Classical Confab” portion of Thomas` program because: ”He plays things that are a little off the beaten track. He doesn`t just stick with the tried and true. He takes chances.”
Being able to take chances is one major advantage of public broadcasting. Without having to cater to the market place, a wider range of material can be explored. ”We don`t try to compete with WMFT and WNIB,” said Thomas.
Nonprofit WDCB is supported by individual memberships ($25 yearly, which provides a monthly newsletter and quarterly program guide), sponsors, several large corporations, small businesses, clubs and groups receiving acknowledgment on the air and in print, the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting, various government or special agency grants and by the College of Du Page.
The freedom allows Thomas to air more 20th Century American composers such as Samuel Barber, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston, the late Leo Sowerby of Chicago, Mark Blitzstein, Howard Hanson, Charles Tomlinson Griffes and others, many of whom he believes have gotten short shrift.
”Some time ago we had a call from a man who felt we should be playing more avant-garde music and not so much traditional stuff. He had a good point,” said Thomas.
He also learned that listeners are intolerant of errors, even small slips. ”I once announced that composer Charles Ives went to Harvard. The switchboard quickly lit up with Elis (Yale students or alums) informing me that Ives went to Yale,” Thomas said.
Thomas and his wife, nicknamed Melly, relax in their living room, which is devoted to her piano and an impressive stereo system Thomas assembled himself. Each admits getting after the other to practice their music more.
”I studied piano as a child,” Melly says. ”I just started taking lessons again for my own enjoyment.”
”I used to practice eight hours a day,” Thomas says. ”As you get older you slow down. Working all day I just can`t practice as much and I can tell the difference in my playing.”
Thomas owns seven or eight clarinets and is thinking about buying another, a basset horn.
”It`s much mellower than an alto clarinet,” he says, selecting a Mozart CD featuring the instrument so that a visitor can hear the clarinet through Thomas` huge speakers, the kind used in movie theaters.
”But it`s a very expensive instrument, several thousand dollars. Melly and I will have to talk about that.” They both grin.
As for the question of devoting himself to classical music radio full time, Thomas hesitates before answering.
”Well, I`m quite happy now, doing well as a data processor, I like where I live and I`m not willing to move. There are only two places around here where you could make a living: WNIB and WMFT. There, others would control me. As it is, I can concentrate on what I think is important.”
WDCB has come a long way since its inception in 1977. When Thomas came aboard in 1981, the station still shared its frequency with another small station. Programming began with ”Dawn Over Du Page.” During the day, WDCB went off the air periodically before returning in the evening.
Scott Thomas, though, as long as people listen, is likely to keep broadcasting without interruption, regular and dependable as Sundays.
