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About the Festival
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Tall Ships on the Hudson River, Sloop Clearwater and Schooner Pioneer. |
The Clearwater Festival - The Great Hudson River Revival music and
environmental summer festival is America’s oldest and largest annual
festival of its kind. This unique event has hosted over 15,000 people on
a weekend in June for more than three decades. All proceeds benefit
Clearwater, a nonprofit 501(c)3 environmental organization.
Join us on the beautiful shore of the Hudson River! Croton Point Park,
in the Village of Croton-on-Hudson, is Westchester County’s natural park
on a spectacular river peninsula of grassy meadows, tree-lined shores,
and sweeping views of the river.
The Festival—a celebration for the Hudson River—features high
quality singer-songwriters, performers and musicians offering fun with a
purpose—a diverse mix of contemporary, traditional and American Roots
music, dance, and storytelling.
Music ranges from Blues to Rock, Reggae to Salsa, Bluegrass to Jazz, and
Funk to Folk. Dance all weekend under a tented raised dance floor to
Zydeco, Swing, Cajun and Square Dancing music.
The Clearwater Festival is designed and implemented to create an
enjoyable, entertaining family experience in alignment with Clearwater’s
environmental, social and business sustainability standards. The
Festival is organized with the utmost attention to each program element.
A diverse lineup of musicians, speakers, vendors, environmental
exhibits, displays and grassroots activist booths are presented to
educate, advocate and celebrate a sustainable lifestyle. In addition to
the festival programming content, all behind-the-scenes elements, such
as sustainable stage power, recycling of food waste, volunteer meal
preparation, and sponsor selection are all done with goals of
sustainability and social responsibility in mind.
The Clearwater Festival and its Green Living Expo offer a virtual
World’s Fair of Environmental Education, Activism and Inspiration.
Pete Seeger at the Clearwater Festival |
Mission of the Festival
The Great Hudson River Revival is produced by the nonprofit,
member-supported, environmental organization, Hudson River Sloop
Clearwater, Inc. to raise funds and consciousness on the plight of the
river and the earth. All proceeds go directly to support Clearwater’s
environmental research, education and advocacy to help preserve and
protect the Hudson River and its tributaries, as well as communities in
the river valley.
The Festival makes possible innovative educational initiatives such as
Clearwater’s New Hudson River School, which has helped more than 430,000
young people and over 250,000 adults experience the wonders of the 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 (EPAs) 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 River 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 35 years ago, when it was but the
dream of a single man, Pete Seeger.
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 industry
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,
fundraising river concerts 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, the flagship of the American Environmental Movement, the Sloop
Clearwater.
This nomadic folk festival picnic continued to travel
through out the Hudson River Valley and then in 1978 the festival set
down roots at a historic river park, Croton Point, on the Hudson River
and was coined The Great Hudson River Revival. However, ten years
later, due to pollution problems with the landfill at the park the
festival was forced to move from the river. This move resulted in a
decade of exile inland at a suburban college campus. In 1998 the
Clearwater board of directors gave a directive, move the festival on or
near the Hudson River. A year later in 1999 saw the triumphant return of
the Clearwater Festival to its spiritual home, the shores of the Hudson
River at Croton Point Park, now the permanent venue for Clearwater’s
environmental and music festival.
Since these humble beginnings, The Clearwater Festival has grown into
the country’s largest annual environmental celebration with music, dance
and storytelling, education and activism, attracting as many as 15,000
people of all ages to the shores of the Hudson River.
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