Randall Wolfe plays a chord on a shiny new grand piano and squints at his choir through wire-rimmed glasses.

        “Someone is fishing,” the director says, looking around the room intently. “Don't fish for the note.”

        It's Thursday night in Norwood, and the top group of the Cincinnati Boychoir — the tour choir — is rehearsing in a narrow frame building with a red awning, across from the Moose Lodge.

        About 30 boys are in the rehearsal hall. They entered chattering and literally turning summersaults. But when Dr. Wolfe gave the cue, they quickly took their seats and began humming a warm-up exercise.

Randall Wolfe rehearses the boychoir (Jeff Swinger photos) | ZOOM |

        This is the premier tour group, the high-voiced veterans who have sung before Reds and Bengals games, at the symphony and Cincinnati May Festival, around the country and in Europe's famous concert halls.

        Dr. Wolfe, 42, who has been Cincinnati Boychoir director since former director William Dickinson retired in 1986, holds their attention for two hours without a break. His energy is unflagging, and he radiates the kind enthusiasm of someone who loves what he does.

        “One administrator told me, "You're going to have to give up the Boychoir, because it will never pay a salary for you,' ” Dr. Wolfe recalls, laughing. “Sometimes it's the people who say it's not possible, who, I think, spur me on all the more.”

        It's crunch time, and all the boys know it — they are singing four concerts in the next six weeks, plus the national anthem at a Mighty Ducks game. The Boychoir usually performs 35 concerts annually, as well as a national or international tour in the summer.

        On the docket tonight: to learn three songs in Chinese.

        There is no cutting up, no giggling, no poking. All eyes look up to Dr. Wolfe.

        “I see him as the Keith Lockhart of boy choirs,” says Elizabeth Pridonoff, faculty member at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where Dr. Wolfe received three degrees. “He's a quiet, behind-the-scenes kind of guy, but like (Boston Pops conductor) Keith, he can be exuberant, outgoing and charismatic.”

        It's been two months since two of his best singers left for Vienna, to join the king of boy choirs, the Vienna Boys Choir — a feat accomplished by only one other American in 500 years.

        “It's a testament to what their director does,” said Robert Porco, director of choruses for Cincinnati May Festival and the Cleveland Orchestra. “It's a coup for Cincinnati Boychoir and the training they're getting.”

RANDALL WOLFE

Wolfe     Nicknames: Randy. “The boys call me D.W.” (for Dr. Wolfe)     Title: Artistic director, Cincinnati Boychoir     Lives: Mason     Birthday: Nov. 21, 1959     Marital status: Single. “At the moment, anyway.”     Education: Bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in music from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music     Most important advice ever received: “CCM professor of music education Rene Boyer-Alexander talked about careers in music, and how we should never limit ourselves in our thinking. She said there will be careers that we can't even envision today in music in the future.     “It became so true for me, because I never would have dreamed of conducting a children's choir in a full-time capacity.”     Favorite vice: “Doritos. If I'm all charged up after a rehearsal, I can go through a whole bag if I'm not careful.”     People would be surprised to know: “I watch Star Trek. The Next Generation is my favorite.”     Can't stand: “Out of tune singing!” (He has perfect pitch.)     Knew he was grown up when: “My Boychoir alumni started serving me in restaurants, and started trying to sell me cars. One ran a car wash, and was always kind to me. He would upgrade it to a wax.”     Biggest stretch: Sent a letter to NASA “to offer our services to be the first boy choir to sing in outer space.     “We've never heard from them. But I had several parents tell me that's where their chaperoning duties will stop.”

        But Dr. Wolfe, who is unaccustomed to being in the limelight, was surprised at the extensive media coverage the two boys generated — including a spot on national television.

        “For him, he's just doing a good job,” Mrs. Pridonoff says. “He loves music with his whole heart, and he wants to make a difference. That's Randy.”

Improbably angelic

        The boys begin their rehearsal with “Ave Maria,” sounding improbably angelic as they stand in jeans, Nike shoes and sports jersies, their parkas tossed haphazardly under their chairs.

        Dr. Wolfe stops them. Someone is out of tune.

        He has the kind of ear that can pick out one wrong note, one voice that is slightly askew. He is a perfectionist, but he corrects it without a fuss.

        “Make a telephone,” he tells them with a smile, as they cup an ear, hum into their palms and listen to their pitches.

        In his pullover sweater and khakis, he has a clean-cut, all-American look. He often removes his glasses to chew on the ends thoughtfully. His sandy blond hair and blue eyes make him seem much younger than his 42 years. When he grins, dimples appear.

        “He has a way of making it fun for kids,” says parent Jenny Callison of Wyoming, whose son John is in his fifth year with the choir. “He can see it from the kids' standpoint — they want to hang out with him. He's like a kid himself. But when he does music, he's very focused.”

        “Randy and the boys work hard at every rehearsal to create a beautiful musical experience, without losing sight of how much fun it is to make music together,” says the choir's composer, Peter Morabito, who has known Dr. Wolfe since 1978. “I truly feel we have one of the best boy choirs in the country here.”

        “I think the only thing I've done longer is play the piano,” says Dr. Wolfe, an accomplished pianist who has won three national piano competitions.

From a musical family

        He grew up in Circleville, in central Ohio south of Columbus, where as a boy, he sang in the Circleville Boys Choir. After his voice changed, he was the choir's accompanist through his high school years.

        He had known by junior high that he wanted to pursue music — expecting to concentrate on piano. As a teen-ager, he studied at Ohio State University on Saturdays with professor George Haddad.

        At home, he competed with three younger brothers for peace and quiet to practice on the piano.

        “They played a lot of Kiss on electric guitars,” he laughs. “If I was practicing my "Beethoven' — as they called all the music I played — it would become a competition to see who could play the loudest.”

        His heartland upbringing belies the sophisticated musician he is, someone who has performed in New York's Carnegie Hall, Washington's Constitution Hall and the golden halls of Vienna, Austria.

        He loved growing up near the woods on his family's four-acre property in Circleville. He and his brothers fished in a nearby creek, catching as many as 30 fish per day — creek chub and the occasional bluegill — that they would throw back.

Religion guides his life

        He is deeply religious. “I have certain religious convictions that become stronger and stronger with each passing year, and really do guide my life,” he says, pointing to an early role model, David Frazer, pastor of Circleville's Community Methodist Church while he was growing up.

        Later, he grew to admire televangelist Robert H. Schuller, “because he started as the son of a farmer and was able to do all sorts of things that would not be possible,” he says. Dr. Wolfe has taken the Boychoir twice to sing on Mr. Schuller's Hour of Power in the Crystal Cathedral, Garden Grove, Calif.

        His parents played the piano well enough to play hymns; their first piano cost $25. But it was his maternal grandfather, Clyde Arledge, who made the biggest impression on the young boy in family musicales.

        “He would play country rock on his fiddle, and my uncles would play drums and guitars,” he says.

        “As far back as I know, we've all been in Ohio. Moving to Cincinnati was a big deal. They couldn't believe I was moving so far away. I came here to go to CCM, and never left.”

"Had no inkling'

        Working with the Cincinnati Boychoir started as a fluke.

        He was a junior at CCM, majoring in piano and music education, when then-assistant director of the Cincinnati Boychoir Scott Moening asked for help.

        “I had no inkling of what I was getting into,” says Dr. Wolfe. “It was December, and there were 10 Christmas concerts. The schedule had been handed out and the accompanist said, "I quit!' ”

        He was pressed into service to play the concerts — without a rehearsal. The next year, Mr. Moening resigned and asked Dr. Wolfe whether he was interested in the job.

        “I said, what does that mean?” Dr. Wolfe recalls. “He said, "A little more pay and a lot more work.' ”

        He was hooked.

        Between graduate degrees at CCM, he took six years off from academia to teach music in several public school districts, something that taught him patience, he says. In 1991, he earned a doctorate in piano and arts administration.

        “When he was at CCM, he was the perfect gentleman. You almost wished he'd do something wrong,” says John Leman, CCM professor of choral conducting and Dr. Wolfe's former teacher.

        “He played a fabulous piano, but no one knew it. He kept all these talents kind of hidden. So when he started his doctorate in piano, I thought, jeez, could this be the same Randy I know? He's an absolute knock-out on the keyboard.”

A boom in boy choirs

        When Dr. Wolfe started as an assistant conductor 20 years ago, there were 100 boys in one choir — a glee club setting. He gradually structured the choir into three groups: a training choir, which last month doubled in size to 60 boys; a resident choir (an intermediate group of about 30) and a tour choir of 32 boys. The choirs include boys ranging from third-graders up to when their voices change, usually about the ninth grade.

        Dr. Wolfe is part of a growing boy choir presence in America. He counts 145 community boy choirs in the United States (he is national chairman for boy choirs in the American Choral Directors Association).

        The boys do it for the comraderie, he says.

        “It's unusual for people to see boys cleaned up and behaving themselves, and singing together in our society today,” he says.

        Choral directors hope that the newfound interest will result in more male singers in adult community choirs, such as Cincinnati's prestigious May Festival Chorus.

        Dr. Wolfe and the boy choir experience made a strong impression on Aaron Hutcherson, 14, of Sharonville, who sang from age 9 to 12, and traveled on the choir's 35th anniversary tour to Europe in June 2000. Aaron, who is home schooled, plans to sing in choirs when he becomes a freshman next year at St. Xavier High School.

        “Dr. Wolfe helped my voice mature, and helped me learn to sing correctly. He helped me appreciate singing,” he says.

Difficult balancing act

        During Dr. Wolfe's tenure, the Boychoir has grown into a prominent entity in Cincinnati, a regular fixture in major productions at the May Festival, Cincinnati Symphony and some opera.

        But his biggest challenge is not musical, he says. It's balancing the needs of the boys, the staff, the parents, the board, the alumni and the community. The hard work it took to build the organization took a toll on the choral conductor's social life. A couple of years ago, he worried that life was passing him by.

        “I was able to create some serious free time for the first time in my life, so I could have a social life — only to realize that I didn't have one!” He laughs. “I had to create that.” Now he's down to just 40-plus hours a week on the choir, plus a small teaching job.

        Today, the choir has a board, a host of parent volunteers, a small staff and a “shoestring budget” of about $200,000 (the norm for boy choirs is $600,000-$700,000) — a budget that Dr. Wolfe would like to double.

        In 1998, they purchased their first permanent home, in Norwood, to accommodate the increased rehearsals, uniforms, offices and a music library.

        It's a first step to what Dr. Wolfe hopes will someday materialize into a day school for his boy choir.

        “My hope and my dream is to have a school where we can not only raise the standards of the choir, by rehearsing together regularly — which all the European men and boys choirs have done for centuries,” he says. “But also because of what it would do for the boys educationally all around.”

A growing audience

        As his choir grows, he finds the audience for boy choirs is growing, too. He marvels that he is recognized around town on a regular basis by Boychoir alumni and their parents.

        “The last time we sang the National Anthem at a Reds game, the great thing was to have so many Boychoir alumni in the stadium come over and say hello. At that point I realized, there are lots of future Boychoir members sitting out there who need to hear the choir,” he says.

        “It gives me a good feeling when I know that I have been part of something that made a difference in their lives.”

        At the end of the rehearsal, the boys take out Strauss' “Blue Danube Waltz,” the signature song of the Vienna Boys Choir. They have never sung it, and they sit around a stereo listening to a recording, following along with their music.

        Then, they stand and sing it themselves, in German, their pure, high voices soaring over Dr. Wolfe's magical piano accompaniment.

        It's just like a bit of old Vienna has come to Cincinnati.

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