Mary Jo Heath

While growing up in Norman, Oklahoma, Mary Jo became what she calls a "jack of all musical trades." She played piano for everybody as well as clarinet in band, orchestra, and pit orchestras, learned to play a little on a lot of different instruments, sang in choir, performed various roles in operas, and worked as Music Director for a small opera company. All that led her to study music theory because she just wanted to understand how music fits together. While she was at the Eastman School of Music earning a Ph.D. in music theory, she started working in radio. Throughout her 25+ years in the music industry – from a record company to an online music magazine, from researching to writing – the glue of radio kept pulling her back. In 2006 when the Metropolitan Opera was looking for a new Senior Radio Producer, she joined the team that brought live radio broadcasts to SiriusXM. After nine seasons working behind the scenes, she took over as host at the start of the 2015/16 season. Mary Jo lives in the suburbs of New York City with her husband and tries not to text her daughter (who graduated from college recently) too much.