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John Richards during our very first<br />
international remote broadcast at the<br />
Iceland Airwaves Festival. <strong>KEXP</strong> recorded<br />
34 performances at multiple locations<br />
during the six-day festival.<br />
Photo: Michael Matynka<br />
sitY foundAtion<br />
Brent stiefel is a self-confessed “music junkie” and the ceo<br />
and founder of votiv, a seattle-based media group that works<br />
with bands including My goodness, craft spells, and Beat<br />
connection. his wife courtney hasn’t touched an instrument<br />
since she mimed her way through playing the recorder in a<br />
4th grade student assembly, but she loves music, too. “i listen<br />
to KexP all the time with our girls in the car,” she says. “it’s a<br />
great opportunity to hear music from all over the world and<br />
get to know the local scene better.”<br />
three years ago, Brent and courtney launched the sitY<br />
foundation—named for their daughters, sienna and tyler—<br />
to assist non-profits that work with the arts, education, and<br />
environmental concerns, especially ones that impact young<br />
people. Partnering with organizations that they feel connected<br />
to is important to the stiefel family and sitY foundation. so is<br />
giving targeted gifts that address a specific need, as they did<br />
with their $14,000 donation to KexP in <strong>2011</strong>.<br />
More than 200 of KexP’s live sessions in <strong>2011</strong> were captured<br />
outside of the station’s broadcast facility. But when our<br />
Programming and Production teams worked off-site in the<br />
past, they had to rent live sound engineering equipment,<br />
which drove up operating costs (and didn’t always guarantee<br />
top-quality gear). Brent and courtney recognized that<br />
KexP’s commitment to public service hinged on the success<br />
of community events like our Bumbershoot Music lounge<br />
performances and Musicfest nW broadcasts, and wanted<br />
to ensure that they sounded as great as the rest of our<br />
programming. thanks to sitY foundation, KexP was able<br />
to purchase a new audio engineering remote kit—nearly 30<br />
pieces of state-of-the-art equipment—to help ensure that<br />
featured bands sound their best.<br />
the stiefel family first got to witness their gift in action during<br />
the Musicfest nW celebration in Portland last fall, and Brent<br />
has every intention of checking in on the remote kit regularly<br />
when he attends events including Bumbershoot and hoodto-hood<br />
Day. heck, that’s part of why sitY foundation made<br />
that high-impact gift in the first place. “i’ve often found that<br />
the KexP sessions are more fun than the actual festivals,” he<br />
admits. “they’re just awesome.”<br />
07
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