LIVERPOOL, N.Y. - Just as Berlioz’s "Symphonie Fantastique" crescendos in its memorable movement, so too ends the long-time career of WCNY-FM radio personality, Don Dolloff.  After 34 years as the voice of trust at WCNY, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) affiliate station in Central New York, Dolloff has decided to retire. 

"I have known Don since I began my tenure with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra and was impressed with his work from the very start,” said Daniel Hege, musical director and conductor of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra.  “In the past several years, we have worked together in partnership on the radio program, 'Backstage with the Syracuse Symphony,’ during which time I have grown an even deeper admiration for his intellect, wit and good nature.”

Dolloff was born and raised in Rockport, Massachusetts, a small Essex County town at the tip of Cape Ann.  He grew up in a musical household: his mother was a church organist, his father played both the saxophone and the clarinet, and his sister was a pianist.  Though his parents attempted to interest Dolloff in an instrument, he resisted, and to this day Dolloff cannot read music or play a musical instrument.  The ability to appreciate music, however, is not exclusive to those with an ability to play it, and so Dolloff went about his path, surrounded by the sounds of familial music. 

When Dolloff was eleven years old he bought his first FM radio.  Rock was the prevalent music on radio stations at the time.  Dolloff sought out two classical music stations based out of Boston, WBCN and WCRB, and listened faithfully to hosts such as Dave Tucker, Dave MacNeil and Richard Kaye.

“That was the ultimate learning experience,” said Dolloff.  “Every day I would come home from school and listen to the radio while doing my homework.  Every time I heard a new piece that I liked – which was often – I would take the record out of the library and listen to it again.  My familiarity with the repertoire grew by leaps and bounds.”

As a young adult, Dolloff attended Harvard University.  Though he began his academic career as a math major, Dolloff eventually switched to English literature.  During his studies, Dolloff found that he connected with T.S. Eliot, the Modernist poet who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.  Eliot spent a part of his boyhood on Cape Ann and for this and other reasons Dolloff decided to write his thesis on Eliot. 

Harvard University also saw the genesis of Dolloff’s broadcast career.  On a snowy day in April of 1965, during the second semester of his sophomore year, Dolloff sat in a university studio waiting to deliver his first newscast as a staff member at WHRB, the university’s student-run radio station.  Dolloff was terrified.  The red light came on; he read the news; and by the end of his newscast, he was hooked.  During his junior and senior years at Harvard, Dolloff worked for both WHRB and WCRB, an all-classical music station in Boston.  Throughout his tenure at both stations, Dolloff smoothed out his strong northeastern accent and polished the recognizable voice known today on the airwaves of WCNY-FM.

It was the middle of the Vietnam War.  1969.  Dolloff had graduated from Harvard in 1968 and was looking forward to beginning his studies in the graduate broadcasting program at Stanford University.  He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and Stanford agreed to hold his spot until he returned from service.  Dolloff spent a year in Vietnam where he taught English to Vietnam Air Force cadets.

“Of course there was no classical music on the radio in Vietnam,” said Dolloff, “but my friends would send me tapes.  And once I got back to Massachusetts, I was able to renew my acquaintances with the classics, not only through the radio but also through the many concerts in the Boston area.”

After his year in Vietnam, Dolloff returned to the United States to the Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts where he worked as an audio-visual specialist until completing his active duty in 1973.  Dolloff then determined to pick up his interest in broadcasting.  Though the Stanford University broadcasting program had closed at the time, a professor at Stanford advised him to apply to Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications.

In 1974, while Dolloff was a graduate student at Syracuse University, Cerid Reed, the Program Director for WCNY-FM, called Newhouse looking for newscasters for a program called, “World at Ten,” a show produced by student interns under the supervision of WCNY staff.  WCNY-FM was only three years old at the time and Dolloff was selected as a student newscaster.  In addition to “World at Ten,” he also voiced readings on Joan Salesman’s “Viewpoint,” a WCNY weekday magazine-format program that included interviews, feature stories and serial book readings.  By the time Dolloff received his master’s degree in 1975, he had thoroughly integrated into WCNY-FM.

In 1975, WCNY officially hired Dolloff.  At the time, the radio station had an eclectic format consisting of classical, jazz and bluegrass music and various public affairs programs.  Dolloff jumped into his new role and began hosting the weekday program “A World of Music.”  In less than one year, Dolloff was promoted to Program Director and placed in charge of scheduling for all of FM’s radio programs. 

When WCNY-FM signed on the air for the first time in 1971, a commercial all-classical music station, WONO, was also on the air.  Because of WONO’s all-classical structure, WCNY-FM steered away from committing itself completely to an all-classical format.  That was, until 1979.  Amid TelAuc and radio broadcasts for the Syracuse Chiefs, WCNY-FM received a call that WONO was abandoning its classical format and that if WCNY-FM wanted their classical record library they had to come pick the record collection up.  Vans were on-site at the WCNY studios due to the TelAuc event, so staff headed over to WONO to carry back to the station a stash that would increase their record library tenfold.  The crates filled with records had to sit for months until a record library large enough to house them was built.  The dissolving of WONO as the classical station for Central New York and this newfound classical bounty was the 1979 inspiration for WCNY-FM switching to a mostly-classical format.

The 1980s marked a period of expansion for WCNY-FM under Dolloff’s direction.  Classical programming grew, including the addition of Syracuse Symphony Orchestra broadcasts, WCNY-FM community outreach events, local performances and the WCNY-produced chamber music series held at St. James Roman Catholic Church in Syracuse.  In 1983, the station moved from broadcasting from 7 a.m. until midnight to broadcasting 24 hours a day.  WCNY-FM also expanded its broadcasting reach: in 1985, WUNY was added to bring WCNY-FM to Utica, and in 1986 WJNY was added to bring WCNY-FM to Watertown.

In 2004, Dolloff was promoted to Station Manager and again in 2005 to Vice President of Radio Operations.  At the end of September 2008, when Dolloff officially retires, he will have seen WCNY-FM through most of its lifetime.  Though the prospect of retirement is bittersweet for Dolloff, he will be leaving the station during a period of considerable stability and a climate of musical enlightenment.

“It is a fascinating time in music history,” said Dolloff.  “Opera is making a rebound and the classical music scene is so vibrant and active.” 

Dolloff is moving temporarily to Pittsburgh, home to his fiancée, Judy Frost, a retired teacher who Dolloff met in 2004 at their 40th high school reunion in Rockport.  They plan on moving back to their hometown of Rockport in the future, the place that brought them together once and again.  Dolloff has three children: his 33-year-old daughter, Melissa, works for Empower Credit Union, and his 25-year-old twins, Rebecca and Andrew, are both music teachers in the area.  While Dolloff does not have any plans to reenter the broadcast world in retirement, Rockport has a world-class chamber music festival that Dolloff surely has his eye on. 

“I will miss Don after he departs WCNY,” said Hege, “for the times we've worked together and for the keen insights he has brought to the music as radio host.”