MUSIC - ART - FOOD - COMMUNITY - DRONE LIGHT SHOW
FREE COMMUNITY EVENT
Day time activities, food vendors, live music, and more!
2:30pm -> 5:45pm - Daytime Activities
5:45pm - Opening Acts
8:00pm - Albany Symphony Concert
Immediately following the concert - Festival Drone Show
Daytime ACTIVITIES
11am-6pm: Upstate Kayaks - Kayaks available for rent
2:30pm: Waterford Historical Museum and Cultural Center - Historical Display
2:30pm: Waterford Public Library - Activities
2:30pm: Peebles Island & Friends of Peebles Island - History Hikes
Meets at Waterford Harbor Visitor Center. Hike with us around picturesque Peebles Island. Our guides will discuss the Native American presence on the Island, its significance during the Revolutionary War, changes in transportation and industry, and other history of this strategic site. Bring cameras and binoculars for a chance to see wildlife. Well-behaved dogs on leash are welcome. Both 30-45 min. & 60-90 min. walks will be led. Please submit an Interest Form if you would like to join!
2:30pm: Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor - Display
2:30pm: Collar Works - Art Display
2:30pm: NYS Dept of Environmental Conservation - Display and Talk
3:00pm: Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy - Nature Crafts and Activities
3:00pm- 5:30pm: Albany Symphony - Open Rehearsal
5:45pm-7:15pm: Opening Acts - To Be Announced
8:00pm-9:30pm: Albany Symphony Concert
9:30pm-9:40pm: Drone Show
Food Vendors
2:30pm-9:45pm:
Freddy's Rockin Lemonade : Fresh squeezed lemon and limeade in a variety of all natural, home made flavors
WarriorCorn: Popcorn/Kettlecorn
Waterford Fordians Summer Baseball League: Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, French Fries, Fried Dough, Lemonade
Munchville: Popcorn, Cotton candy, Deep fried Oreos, Quesadillas, Fried dough, Burgers, Dogs, Fresh cut fries
Mike's Hot Dogs & Mike's on a Roll: Hot Dogs Angus Burgers Quesadilla Gyros Chicken Tenders and Fries Fried Dough Oreos and Twinkie Fresh Squeezed Lemonade
Accessibility Information
Drop Off Area:
Attendees may be dropped off at the corner of Broad St. and Short 5th St (Erie Canal Lock 2 trail).
We are currently working to designate specific Accessible Parking at the nearby 5th Street.
Access to Activities on Lawn:
An access mat will be utilized to create a firm surface to aid access to food trucks and vendors set up on the lawn.
Access to Event Seating Area:
There will be designated specific spots in the seating area which are flatter/ have a sturdier surface.
Restrooms:
Portable restrooms will be available at the site near the entrance bridge including ADA Accessible or better. Check Site Map here for visual location.
Sound:
The concert will be lightly amplified so that everyone on the lawn can hear, but not as loud as traditional outdoor concerts.
ASL Interpretation:
There will be ASL interpretation of the concert so that everyone can come to feel the beat and enjoy the concert. Albany Symphony will be performing a number of works with lyrics or spoken text - the text will also be available online.
For questions regarding accessibility, please contact Tori Conner: Toric@albanysymphony.com
Parking and Additional Information
Parking
Parking is available within proximity to the event. In addition to nearby street parking, these lots will be available during the event:
J. Ormond Grady Municipal Parking Lot at the intersection of Broad St. and Tugboat Alley
On street parking (3rd and 4th Street)
Animals
Service animals shall be allowed on site. Other animals shall be allowed onsite on a leash no more than 6 feet long and under direct supervision of owner at all times unless specifically prohibited by site owner. Owner is expected to clean up after their pets at all times. Animals and handlers shall comply with all host venue site requirements and precautions.
Featured Composers
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.
Celka Ojakangas
Celka Ojakangas is a Los Angeles-based composer originally from southwest Missouri whose “music is highly imaginative and characterful” (American Academy of Arts and Letters) and “takes molecular musical quirks and explodes them, then seizes precious moments of lyricism.” (Columbia Tribune) Described as weaving a “vivid, nested surrealism” into her work, Celka’s music plays with hybridism and recontextualization, intentionally exploring and blurring the boundaries between culturally-defined genres for a resultant fun and eclectic palette of textures, rhythms, and grooves. Celka gleans her musical ideas from her collaborative work as a violist in symphonies, new music ensembles, jazz bands, and rock bands, always with the intention of bringing creativity and play to the forefront of the listener’s and performer’s experiences.
Celka’s compositions have been premiered and commissioned by many artists including Martin Chalifour with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Alarm Will Sound, Dogs of Desire, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Music from Copland House, Hub New Music, the New England Conservatory Philharmonia, the Raleigh Symphony, Portland State University Opera, Blackhouse Collective, Bantam Winds, the Thornton Symphony Orchestra, and the Thornton Wind Ensemble. Recent distinctions include the Goddard Leiberson Fellowship from American Academy of Arts and Letters, the 2025 Aspen Music Festival Jacob Druckman Prize, a premiere with the LA Phil’s Chamber Music Series, the Gunther Schuller Centennial Third Stream Composition Contest prize, the CULTIVATE Copland House Emerging Composer’s Fellowship, Bang on a Can Summer Festival Composer’s Fellowship, the Mizzou International Composer Festival Composer’s Residency, the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer’s Award, Opera America’s Discovery Grant for Female Composers, and the American Prize for Wind Band. Active both as a composer and performer, Celka has also collaborated with musicians at Blackhouse New Music Workshops, the Oh My Ears! Festival, and the Oregon Bach Festival Composers’ Symposium.
Celka has a DMA in Composition from the University of Southern California. Former mentors include Donald Crockett, Andrew Norman, Ted Hearne, Sean Friar, Frank Ticheli, Mara Gibson and Carlyle Sharpe. She currently serves as a Visiting Professor of Music at Occidental College and Glendale Community College.
Adam Frelin
Adam Frelin (b.1973, Grove City, PA) has shown widely at venues such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Getty Research Institute, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. He has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and College Art Association. Frelin has completed residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, MacDowell Colony, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Ucross Foundation, Fine Arts Work Center, and Yaddo, among others. He has published two books of photography and has had several public artworks commissioned throughout the world. Most notably, he and his team were awarded a $1 million Public Art Challenge grant through Bloomberg Philanthropies for which Frelin was Lead Artist on Breathing Lights, a multi-city temporary art installation that involves illuminating abandoned buildings with a breathing effect created with light.
Frelin received a BFA from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and an MFA University of California, San Diego. Currently he is an Associate Professor of art at the SUNY University at Albany, and lives in Troy, NY.
An Erie Canal Bicentennial Event
DID YOU KNOW?
“The Waterford Flight” is a set of 5 locks that raises boats from the Hudson River (elevation 15.2 feet) at Lock 2 to the Mohawk River (elevation 184 feet) west of Lock 6 and above the Cohoes Falls. The locks range in lift from 33 to 34.5 feet. It raises boats a total elevation of 169 feet in ~1.5 miles. When opened, the flights were the highest elevation in the shortest distance in the country for canal locks. It is speculated that they remain the highest elevation over the shortest distance for a canal in the world in the world: for comparison, the Panama Canal is an elevation change of 85 ft. and the Welland Canal in Canada rises 326 ft. over 27 miles.