Happy Birthday KUSC

 As I write this, I am listening to Richard Strauss’s Horn Concerto #11 on KUSC, the Los Angeles classical music station. Today is the 75th birthday of KUSC and this made me think about how lucky I have been to have classical music available to me during my lifetime. I listened to WFLN in Philadelphia growing up but really got into them in my med school days at Temple, when I would have classical music playing while I studied. They ceased broadcasting classical music in 1997. The station’s classic recordings were donated to Temple’s music station WRTI 90.1 and in that sense, WFLN lives on.

I accumulated classic music LP’s that sufficed for my music at home but there was a desert for classical through the airwaves from the mid-70s until 1983 for me. After entering the Navy in 1979, there was nothing on Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS, pronounced a-farts) in Guantanamo Bay that could be termed classical (Casey Kasem and AT40 and Wolfman Jack became favorites). Even San Diego was a classical music desert.

Tidewater Virginia had some classical music when I moved there in 1983, but it was not full-time for WHRO 90.3 until 1990. Deployment to the Persian Gulf for Operation Desert Shield/Operation Desert Storm interrupted my enjoyment of this genre again and it was back to American Forces Network (successor to AFRTS) and BBC until I returned to Norfolk in March 1991. I then became a member of WHRO. Bliss. Classical 24/7/365.

Margan and I moved to Chicago in 2002 and WFMT 98.7 became it for two years. It was commercial but solidly classic in its music. When Margan had orders to NNMC Bethesda in 2004, I looked and was pleasantly surprised to find WGMS 103.9 with delightful hosts and superb classical music. Imagine my astonishment in 2007 when an abrupt announcement was made that the end of the station had arrived; it was sold and rebranded to popular music. Only an agreement with WETA to resume its classical music format saved the day. That was my station for all the remaining years we lived in Maryland.

And on our move to Pasadena, we found KUSC. Delightful on-air hosts. Wonderful programming. There are still many stations playing the classical genre in the United States but many of them are small and part of colleges or universities with limited funding. If you enjoy classical music, you can now stream it via the internet. The 75th birthday of KUSC FM 91.5, the largest nonprofit classical music station in the U.S., reminded me of how lucky I have been to find this programming and to enjoy it for so many years.