about the Festival

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The Clearwater Music and Environmental Festival is the nation’s oldest and largest annual festival of its kind. It has hosted over 15,000 people on a weekend in June for more than three decades.

The Clearwater Festival is a celebration of the environment as well as the beauty that is the majestic Hudson River. It features quality and purposeful performers offering a diverse blend of contemporary, traditional and American roots music, as well as dancing, storytelling and theater.

The music ranges from blues to rock, reggae to salsa, bluegrass to jazz, and funk to folk. Dance participants enjoy Zydeco, swing, Cajun and square dancing.

The Festival, including all stages, is 100% powered by solar energy, soy-diesel generators and wind-powered energy credits.

HISTORY OF THE FESTIVAL

Back in the mid-sixties, after centuries of accumulated sewage pollution and industrial dumping of toxic chemicals, the Hudson River was deemed “dead”. The river’s fragile ecological system was devastated. Not a single fish was found in many areas; the level of commercial fishery dropped dramatically and the once thriving oyster harvesting became almost nonexistent. Recognizing this incredible social and environmental tragedy, Pete Seeger, a popular musician and respected activist, decided “to build a boat to save the river”. Holding small, fund-raising picnics throughout the Hudson River Valley, he literally passed his banjo among the crowd, collecting contributions to build the elegant tall ship that would become a symbol of environmental advocacy and the festival’s most popular icon, the sloop Clearwater.

Since that humble beginning, The Clearwater Festival has grown into the country’s largest annual environmental celebration of music, dance and storytelling, attracting as many as 15,000 people of all ages to the shores of the Hudson River.

MISSION OF THE FESTIVAL

The Clearwater Festival, Great Hudson River Revival, is produced by the nonprofit environmental organization, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. All proceeds go directly to support environmental research, education and advocacy to help clean up the Hudson River and its tributaries, as well as other great waterways and byways.

The Festival makes possible innovative educational initiatives such as the Hudson River School, which has helped more than 400,000 children and over 250,000 adults experience the wonders of the majestic Hudson River from aboard the sloop Clearwater. The organization itself has gained worldwide recognition for its leadership in helping to pass landmark environmental laws, both state and federal, including the Clean Water Act.

Recently, Clearwater played a key role in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to compel one of the Hudson River’s biggest polluters to begin removing toxic PCBs from the water and restoring one of the most polluted portions of the river. In 2002, Pete Seeger was named a “Clean Water Hero” for his prominent efforts in the passage of the Clean Water Act. His tireless devotion to working through Clearwater and promoting its message to effectively use the law in prosecuting polluters of America’s waterways has made the Clean Water Act one of the most successful environmental laws in the country.

Today, seeing the success of the Clearwater organization, one cannot imagine these achievements being possible without the Clearwater Festival. The Great Hudson Reiver Revival has helped raise funds and served as a beacon bringing awareness in support of America's First River. And it all started more than 30 years ago, when it was but the dream of a single man, Pete Seeger.