Charleston’s music and arts community recently lent its voice to one of South Carolina’s important environmental issues through Songs to Save the Edisto, a three-part series held at Hed Hi Studio in Charleston.
Songs to Save the Edisto Parts 1–3 brought musicians, artists, environmental advocates and community members together around a common concern: protecting the Edisto River and raising awareness about threats to one of the Lowcountry’s most treasured waterways.
The events took place as conservation groups and communities along the Edisto raised concerns about a proposed large natural-gas power plant and related infrastructure within the Edisto watershed.
Instead of approaching the issue through a traditional environmental meeting, Songs to Save the Edisto took a different route.
It started with music.
Held at Hed Hi Studio on Upper King Street, the series brought environmental issues directly into Charleston’s arts and music community. Each gathering combined live performances, art and conversation with opportunities for people to learn more about what was happening along the Edisto and how they could become involved.
That was part of what made the series interesting.
Environmental campaigns often depend on public meetings, scientific reports and policy discussions. Those things are important, but they don’t always reach people outside the traditional conservation community.
Music and art can.
Songs to Save the Edisto created a place where someone could come to hear music, see friends or experience local art—and leave knowing more about an environmental issue affecting the region.
The Charleston Climate Coalition was among those working to bring attention to the proposed energy project and its potential environmental and climate impacts. The larger effort brought together people from Charleston’s conservation, climate, music and creative communities around the future of the Edisto.
At the center of it all was the river.
The Edisto and its surrounding wetlands, forests and communities make up one of South Carolina’s most distinctive natural landscapes. Protecting it means looking beyond what happens directly along the riverbanks to the development, industry and infrastructure that can affect the entire watershed.
That can be a complicated story to tell.
Songs to Save the Edisto made it more personal: bring people together, play music, tell the story of the river and give people a reason to care.
With three events completed, Songs to Save the Edisto became more than a single benefit show. It demonstrated another way Charleston’s creative community could become part of the environmental conversation.
And Parts 1–3 may not be the end of the story. With continued interest in protecting the Edisto and growing connections between Charleston’s environmental and creative communities, there may be more Songs to Save the Edisto events to come.
There is something fitting about using songs to help protect a river.
Rivers connect communities. Music does much the same thing.
And bringing the two together showed how conservation can reach people in new and unexpected ways.
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