MaryAnn Bonino to host new Sunday morning show on KUSC

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It was 20 years ago today ... no, wait a second, those are the lyrics to the Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.’ But it will be20 years ago next year that MaryAnn Bonino completed her 10-year tenure as producer and announcer of several weekly music series on classical music station KUSC-FM (91.5), from 1979 to 1989.

And now, Bonino, founding artistic director emeritus of the Da Camera Society at Mount St. Mary’s College and creator of its popular Chamber Music in Historic Sites series, is returning to KUSC on Sunday mornings. From 7 to 9 a.m, it will be Breakfast with Bonino as producer and host of the new weekly series ‘Sunday Music,’ making its debut Dec. 28.

‘I’m thrilled,’ Bonino tells Culture Monster. ‘I’m back with all my old, good friends. I love the program, and I love the idea of Sunday morning, spending time with a particular repertory, so it’s a pleasure to be back.’

Her plans for the series? Sunday morning, Bonino says, is ‘a time for reflection, a kind of assessment of things.... Some of the greatest music ever written is sacred music, so it will primarily be sacred music, both instrumental and vocal. But there will be occasional other repertory, simply because it fits into the seasonal approach that I will take. One of the nice things about the liturgical calendar is that it celebrates the seasons.’

The busy Bonino, who is also professor-at-large emeritus at Mount St. Mary’s, curator of the Doheny Mansion and recently published ‘The Doheny Mansion: Biography of a Home,’ points out that the Da Camera Society and the chamber music series are still going strong under the direction of Kelly Garrison.

-- Diane Haithman