Turning It Up

Jude Weinstein performing.

When Bluffer and LFHS senior Jude Weinstein and two friends wanted a place for local high school bands to play, they created one. Last year, Weinstein, Cooper and Trisha launched Porchlight Fest, a small music festival along the Chicago River near Roscoe Village. The original idea was modest—a few local high school bands, a place to play and an audience to hear them. “It ended up being a huge blast,” Weinstein says. Last year, what happened was enough fun to warrant an encore.

This year, Porchlight Fest is back. Jude is now largely running Porchlight Fest himself, with some help from friends, bringing young musicians together for another day of live music and the kind of experience that can be difficult for teenage bands to find: an actual place to perform. For Jude, creating that opportunity feels like a natural extension of his own musical upbringing. He started playing piano in first grade, studying with a teacher named Audie who gave him an unusual amount of freedom. “He was a huge inspiration for me at a young age,” Weinstein says. “He let me pick anything I wanted to learn, and I had a ton of freedom to learn anything.”

Years later, Weinstein seems to be applying much the same philosophy on a larger stage: give young musicians some room, let them play what they want to play—and see what happens. All proceeds of the Porchlight Festival go to Avondale Mutual Aid, a volunteer-run neighborhood group in Avondale, Chicago.

Scan for tickets to Porchlight Fest. Proceeds support Avondale Mutual Aid.