Music: Career of Tommy Dix

In an NBC studio in Manhattan, a squad of baritones warmed up. Said a sharp-eared passer-by to a receptionist: “Is there a job open for baritones? Maybe I can horn in on this audition.” Horn in he did. When he sang before Conductor Wilfred Pelletier and other judges of the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air—a Sunday program from which two singers annually are chosen for small places in the opera—he impressed them vastly. Last Sunday they put him on the auditions program—but as a guest, not a contestant.

Even if Baritone Tommy Dix won a job, the Metropolitan would be hard put to find him work. He is only 15 years old.

But on the radio the Met’s Manager Edward Johnson introduced him as a singer of promise, let him carol Malotte’s lusty Song of the Open Road.

As it must to all men, change of voice came to Tommy Dix, but earlier than to most: when he was n. He was then singing alto in the Trinity Church choir. At Manhattan’s High School of Music and Art, where he won a four-year scholarship, Tommy Dix was president of his class, president of the Science Club, captain of the fencing team. Two summers ago, because his widowed mother was ill, he left school, “to commercialize on whatever talent I had.”

He has been commercializing his talent by acting in programs like The Aldrich Family, Superman, Renfrew of the Mounted. As a baritone, he is better than most is-year-olds, has been offered a fellowship at the Juilliard School of Music, but now inclines toward the theatre. For his interest in physics. Tommy Dix has been made an honorary member of the American Institute of Science. He is also a Boy Scout.