St. Pete Youth Music Festival To Raise Funds For Music Students

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — Youth musicians will take the stage at The Factory in St. Petersburg Saturday, showing off their talents from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The Summer Youth Music Festival is being organized by the Tampa Bay-area nonprofit Cordero Music in collaboration with Project No Labels, an LGBTQ+ group that focuses on volunteerism, activism and social events.

Cordero Music is a service organization that provides lessons and instruments to students who can’t afford them, founder Holly Cordero told Patch. It also organizes showcases like Saturday’s events for young musicians.

“It allows them to share their musical abilities with a wider audience,” she said. “I want to give youth a space for people to hear their music besides just family and friends.”

Cordero is a longtime music educator in Polk County, where she teaches modern and contemporary music, including rock, pop and hip hop, to middle and high school students.

After organizing a battle of the bands for students in the area in 2022, she saw the need to create spaces for youth to perform their original music.

Her nonprofit, which she formed this spring, was born from this event and she expanded her reach to all of the Tampa Bay area.

“I wanted them to feel like they had an opportunity to do stuff and in a space to reach more people,” Cordero said. “I wanted to grow a festival so that it’s not just my kids (at school) but all kids in the area.”

More than 30 bands and performers from throughout the Tampa Bay area will participate in Saturday’s event, which will also feature more than 20 local vendors and food trucks.

Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door. There’s also a VIP package available for $75, which includes a sneak preview of the festival Friday evening at Ride’em Cowboy. Purchase tickets online here.

The event will be used to sponsor one of Cordero’s students, Travis, 15. When he broke his arm during a football game, he couldn’t play guitar.

“He tried singing and that didn’t work out for him,” she said. “Now, he’s making his own beats and was even in the all-state digital music showcase.”

The funds will be used to help him purchase a computer that can run recording software.

A portion of the money raised will also benefit Project No Label’s mental health program.

“It really made a lot of sense for Project No Labels to be involved,” founder Claire Elisan told Patch. “With everything going on in the world and community and politics and everything, what better way to bring our community … than doing something for the kids, for the youth, for the younger humans and having it be fun and LGBT+ and for our allies.”