Albany Symphony to Present WATER MUSIC NY: MORE VOICES FESTIVAL 2026

This July and August, the two-time GRAMMY Award-winning Albany Symphony will present a free, three-concert series along the historic New York State Canal system. Water Music NY: More Voices Festival will take place in Waterford (July 10), Rome (July 11), and The Tonawandas (August 15), with each performance uniquely shaped by its host Canalside community. It will be an immersive musical and outdoor experience for all to enjoy!

This year's programming looks toward the future of the Erie Canal as a linear park and a vibrant public recreational and cultural asset. Through music and community engagement, the festival highlights environmental stewardship, community storytelling, and innovation. The series positions the Canal not only as an historic landmark, but as a living, evolving space for creativity and connection.

Each location will offer community-wide celebrations featuring outdoor recreation, art installations, and craft foods and beverages to engage residents and visitors in fun, insightful, and delicious experiences. These festivals unfold directly on the Erie Canal, where creative and community partners come together to develop collaborative, site‑inspired works along its waterways and trails. Attendees can come to enjoy the activities near the water and stay for the uplifting orchestra performance and exciting drone show. This visionary program fuses music, performance, and civic participation to imagine new futures for the Erie Canal and New York State, while coinciding with the summer that marks the 250th anniversary of American independence.

Waterford | July 10, 2026 | Lock E-2

Water Music NY: More Voices Festival launches in Waterford on Friday, July 10, 2026, at Lock E-2.Composer Celka Ojakangas will transform the lock site into a vibrant performance environment that unites music, nature, art, and community. Her work will focus on an exploration of local natural habit and population restoration to reintroduce eagles to the region. She will work with local schools and community groups to write haikus on this theme to be featured in the new work. The concert will conclude with a drone show.

Throughout the afternoon and evening, the site will come alive with student showcases, museum-led Canal heritage activities, recreational opportunities, art installations curated by Collar Works, and community tabling, along with food and beverage offerings for all to enjoy.

Ojakangas envisions a story-driven work inspired by the natural beauty and conservation history of Peebles Island State Park. The Ballad of Mr. Peebles would follow a bald eagle descended from Alaska who was a "hacked" chick reintroduced to New York, tracing his growth through a narrative woven with reflections from conservationists and including a movement depicting the dramatic courtship "death spiral." She also hopes to incorporate student-written poems and explore visual or theatrical elements such as puppetry, sculpture, or collaborations with regional conservation groups to create an immersive, community-centered performance celebrating wildlife, stewardship, and place.

Ojakangas is known for creating immersive, interdisciplinary works that merge classical music with technology, movement, and site-specific storytelling, often exploring mechanical, environmental, and social systems. A Los Angeles-based composer from southwest Missouri, her bold, lyrical, and inventive music reflects her hybrid approach and her collaborative background as a violist. Her works have been widely commissioned and honored-including the 2025 Aspen Music Festival Jacob Druckman Prize-and she holds a DMA from USC while serving as a Visiting Professor of Music at Occidental College and Glendale Community College.

Rome | July 11 | Bellamy Harbor Park

The festival continues on Saturday, July 11 in Rome at Bellamy Harbor Park. Composer Jack Frerer will shape a dynamic concert that celebrates creativity, civic pride, and community stewardship, collaborating with local student performing groups to create an intergenerational musical experience. His program blends bold, expressive music with storytelling rooted in local voices and shared history, and celebrating Rome, New York as the location of the first shovelful of earth dug to create the Canal system.

The event will feature an all-day, block-party atmosphere at the park, bringing together student ensembles, arts partners, and Canal audiences. The date falls within Rome's two-week "Honor America Days" celebration, which begins on July 4 and highlights local pride, patriotism, and community traditions. Audiences can look forward to a drone show to cap off the event.

Frerer is exploring a collaborative work inspired by the layered history and identity of Rome, New York. He envisions partnering with young local actors to create a series of brief dramatic scenes reflecting defining elements of the community - from the Erie Canal and Fort Stanwix to the Air Force base and the origins of the city's name. Frerer will weave an original score throughout the performance, blending spoken word and music as singers expand upon, respond to, and illuminate the text. By blurring the boundaries between theater and orchestral performance, the piece aims to bring Rome's past and present to life through the voices and stories of its own community.

Frerer is widely recognized for music that foregrounds collaboration, accessibility, and expressive clarity, centering human connection and storytelling. An Australian-born composer praised by The New York Times as "exciting...combining boom-crash orchestration with woozy portamenti and jazz elegance" and hailed by Observer as "a force to be reckoned with," he has had his work commissioned and performed by major orchestras, ensembles, and institutions and has received honors including the Charles Ives Scholarship, the Morton Gould Composers Award, the Suzanne and Lee Ettelson Composers Award, and the Brian Israel Prize. He is active as an orchestrator, arranger, and producer, holds degrees from The Juilliard School and Yale School of Music, and currently resides in New York City while serving on the composition faculty at Rutgers University.

The Tonawandas | August 15 | Gateway Harbor

The culmination of this landmark three-year project - and a forward-looking celebration of the Erie Canal's third century - takes place on Saturday, August 15 in the Tonawandas at Gateway Harbor Park. Composer Hannah Ishizaki will curate a multidisciplinary concert that explores the physicality of performance and the intersections of sound, reflection, and visual design, connecting diverse artistic elements with local innovators and audiences. The evening will conclude with an exciting drone show display.

Daytime activities at Gateway Harbor and along the Canal will include pop-up performances, art installations, youth music showcases, and vendor zones coordinated with two beloved local festivals: Carnegie Arts Spree and Arts & Eats on Webster.

Ishizaki will draw inspiration from the rich history and enduring community spirit of the Tonawandas, where industries such as Wurlitzer organ and juke-box manufacturing, carousel production, and the lumber trade once helped shape America's economic growth through the Erie Canal's vital connectivity. While these innovations forged the region's past, Ishizaki was most struck by the strength of the community that has flourished in the post-industrial era. Her first-hand encounters with local organizations and residents revealed a shared belief that the true heart of the Tonawandas lies in its people and their deep sense of connection. Reflecting this spirit, Ishizaki envisions a work that transforms the Erie Canal's legacy from a conduit of commerce into a modern gathering point for human connection. Her piece will incorporate an interactive digital element that invites audience members to participate using their phones, generating musical tones when devices are brought together. Through this shared act of connection, the audience becomes an integral part of the performance, creating sound collaboratively and embodying the community's interconnectedness at the heart of the identity in the Tonawandas.