Stewart Vanderwilt with Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats
This week marks the first time in decades that Colorado Public Radio has had a president other than Max Wycisk, who took on that role in 1978 and built a single station, KCFR-FM, into a state-spanning multi-channel operation prior to the late 2017 announcement that he would be retiring at the end of June.
Wycisk’s successor is Stewart Vanderwilt, previously the longtime general manager of legendary KUT in Austin, who brings loads of experience and a different style to the gig.
“I see as my job to take what Max has built and bring it to another level of service,” Vanderwilt says.
Vanderwilt had a Colorado connection even before signing up with CPR. As he recalls, “I spent a couple of summers working construction out here when I was in high school. I worked for a bricklayer in Denver, and he did jobs from Colorado Springs to Boulder — and what a great summer it was. I was living with a friend whose father was doing graduate studies at the University of Denver, and that led to me spending a year of high school at Campion Academy outside of Loveland. We skied at Winter Park — Mary Jane — every weekend. I grew up in western Canada and skied all the time there, so it was a wonderful opportunity.”
He feels the same way about the chance to oversee Colorado Public Radio. “It’s the kind of thing that’s only going to come around once in a career,” he maintains, “and I hope I can bring to it my experience building a journalistic organization, building a statewide news program, building a music-discovery station. There are a lot of parallels to that work and the work Max has done here.”
True enough. Founded in 1970, KCFR evolved from a relatively free-form station licensed to the University of Denver to a classical-music service with a National Public Radio news component that branded itself as Colorado Public Radio in 1991. A decade later, in 2001, music and news were put on separate tracks — and in 2011, CPR launched OpenAir, which concentrates on contemporary music made by national and local artists.
Austin’s KUT, for its part, began as a University of Texas affiliate, with roots that may stretch all the way back to 1912. Classical music and NPR programming have been part of the package there over time, too. Then, in 2002, when Vanderwilt was at the helm, the station assembled its first news department. KUT Public Media Studios debuted in 2012, and the next year, Vanderwilt helped birth KUTX, a 24-hour music service dominated by music from the local Austin scene.
To Vanderwilt, such projects made his position “a dream job. But it’s also one I’ve been doing for eighteen years, and those services are at their peak. So it’s probably a good time for someone else to get a chance. And I’d say the same thing about Colorado Public Radio.”
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He would like to see the same kind of thing happen at OpenAir, whose music connects with him on a personal level much as does KUTX’s soundtrack. He speaks knowledgeably about his love for combos such as Spoon and Austin performers like Tamiko Jones — “and it’s not pandering when I say [Denver-based] Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats is one of the most fun bands I’ve seen and heard.”
Bidding farewell to Austin wasn’t easy, Vanderwilt concedes. “It’s really difficult to leave a community that has been so supportive and embracing of both our family and the work that we’ve done. But at the same time, I’m feeling that same embrace from everyone I’ve met and talked with at Colorado Public Radio.”
He pauses before adding, “And the summers are better.”
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By Michael Roberts
Michael Roberts has written for Westword since October 1990, serving stints as music editor and media columnist. He currently covers everything from breaking news and politics to sports and stories that defy categorization.
Photo: Even before Stewart Vanderwilt, second from left, came to Colorado Public Radio, he already had a fondness for Colorado music, as seen in this March photo with Nathaniel Rateliff and members of the Night Sweats. (Photo from Facebook)
[Thank you to Alex Teitz, http://www.femmusic.com, for contributing this article.]