Ithaca’s Porchfest is this Sunday, September 21.
The festival was the first of its kind when it started in Ithaca in 2007 with about 20 musicians. This year, 160 acts are playing Porchfest.
The celebration of live local music has spread beyond the city. Hundreds of communities across the country have adopted the tradition.
WSKG’s Aurora Berry spoke with Porchfest founder Lesley Greene and the festival’s co-organizer Andy Adelewitz.
*WSKG is partnering with Ithaca Porchfest for this year's event.
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Aurora Berry: Lesley Greene and Andy Adelewitz are the co-organizers of [Ithaca] Porchfest. Thank you so much for being here today.
Lesley Greene: It's such a pleasure. Thank you.
Andy Adelewitz: Yeah, thanks for having us.
AB: I want to ask you, Lesley, what was the moment when you first decided that Ithaca needed a porchfest?
LG: Well, there was no such thing as a porchfest. So that moment, my husband and I were playing ukuleles on my front steps, and a neighbor walked by—Gretchen Hildreth—and we got to talking about how nice it was to hear music outside, that we both particularly liked that.
And then we sort of looked around and thought, you know, there are so many musicians who live just right in this area, there could practically be a festival of outdoor music. And then every time that we saw each other for the next few months, we said, ‘you know, we really should do that. We should have a porchfest.’ And then we did it. In September of 2007.
AB: Describe to me what that first Porchfest looked like when you looked around at the crowd, when you looked around at who was playing.
LG: I mean, it was much smaller than what we do now. Now we've got 160 bands playing this year. But other than that, it was the same kind of idea, people wandering around and listening to the music and enjoying it.
AB: I'm wondering, here in Ithaca, what you feel Porchfest has meant for our local music scene and the development of artists?
Andy Adelewitz: Porchfest is a great place to play for the first time. And one of my favorite things walking around every year is to see the kids that are performing. You know, you've got 11,12-year olds with their first band. I was so much older than that when I even started playing the guitar. And it's so cool to see these really young kids, like, just getting out in front of people. And maybe they're not great yet, but they're doing it.
And that goes for, there's lots of adults who may be seasoned musicians, but they've got a new band, and this is sort of their like tryout ground, you know, let's see how this goes in front of an audience. And I love that it provides people with that opportunity.
AB: Do you guys have a favorite Porchfest memory that you'd like to share?
LG: Andy, tell the Swedish musician story.
AA: So last year, we got an email from this band from Sweden, or I guess it was a duo from Sweden, who said we have dreamed for years of coming to play Porchfest, and we're finally going to do it this year, but we don't know anyone in town.
And we were like, we will find you a place to play if you're coming from Sweden. You know, usually we don't do the matchmaking, but if you're coming from Sweden to play Porchfest—one, I think you're insane, but come on in.
And, you know, we found them a spot on the pavilion in the park. And I saw their set, and they were cool. And then later in the day, I was playing with one of my bands, and down in the audience I saw an old friend of mine who I hadn't seen in about a decade or more. And we said hi, and we were catching up after my set ended, and she mentioned that she was the reason why this band from Sweden had come to Porchfest.
They were all in some kind of program, I think it was Costa Rica, together, and were all sitting around talking one night. And they got into what's the coolest thing about your hometown? And she told them about Porchfest, because she's from Ithaca, and apparently this band—this was years ago— had just been entranced with the idea of Porchfest all this time, and finally, [they] came and played it. And it turns out it was because of an old friend of mine.
AB: How did it feel to have Porchfest, something that you're so involved with organizing, described as someone's favorite thing about their hometown?
AA: You know, we hear that from people sometimes. I don't think it's unprecedented. It's, I think it's for both of us, one of our favorite things about our hometown. You know, we don't get paid to do this. We really like that it happens, so we keep making it happen, and it's unlike anything else you encounter in music.
AB: Thanks so much for being here.
LG: It was great.
AA: It's really been a pleasure. Thank you.