Clearwater Festival on Pause as Organization Reimagines Festival’s Future
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By Em Stangarone
For over half a century, folks have gathered to sing, dance and raise awareness about protecting the Hudson River at the Clearwater Festival.
Historically held on Father’s Day weekend at Croton Point Park, the Great Hudson River Revival is on pause as Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc.’s board voted against holding the event this year.
Organization representatives explained that it didn’t have the funds required to plan and carry out a 2022 festival, citing various risks, including COVID-19 precautions, as important considerations. The festival was held virtually in 2020 and 2021, but due to decreasing participation in online events at this stage in the pandemic, the virtual format was scrapped for this year.
The organization has, however, approved and released a dedicated plan, rooted in financial sustainability, that calls for the re-envisioning of the festival’s future. The Strategic Plan was devised after it received a $10,000 grant in 2020 from the Hudson River Foundation, a group that relies on science-based approaches to protect the river, which allowed Clearwater to collect feedback, evaluate challenges and develop an internal assessment to create the Strategic Plan.
“Public access to and engagement with our shared waterways is hugely important,” said Hudson River Foundation Communications Manager Sara Harrison. “It’s a really important way to get people invested in caring for shared resources and connecting to the land and the places they live.”
In accordance with the Strategic Plan, a subcommittee of board members and community members has been formed and is in the early stages of reimagining the festival as well as other music-based community events in the future. The organization looks forward to sharing its plans for future festivals as those are developed.
The Clearwater Festival started as a “folk picnic” in the 1960s by Pete and Toshi Seeger and their friends in response to the longtime pollution of the Hudson River that left its ecosystem devastated. In 1978, the event found its permanent home in Croton Point Park, where it would grow to become one of the oldest and largest annual environmental celebrations in the country, featuring activists, musicians, storytellers and artists.
Money raised by the revival helps Clearwater continue its research, education and activism with the goal of protecting the Hudson River and the communities that call it home.
“The Clearwater Revival Festival has been a cherished event in the Hudson Valley for generations,” said Tracy Brown, president of Riverkeeper, an environmental organization that works alongside Clearwater to protect the Hudson. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to bring people to the river and inspire deeper and lasting connections to its beauty and to our role as its stewards.”
“The Great Hudson River Revivals of the last decade looked very different from those held in the 1970s, and it is time to reimagine music and celebration in a post-COVID world,” Hudson River Sloop Clearwater’s Executive Director David Toman said.
While the particulars of the festival may shift and evolve, the musical heart beating at Clearwater’s core will remain, with song incorporated into every one of the organization’s programs, meetings and events.
“Music and the power of song have always been one of the ways that Clearwater connects communities to the Hudson River and inspires all of us to protect and preserve this vital natural resource,” Toman said. “That is not going to change.”
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