PREVIEW: Reflections on Waterways: RPI and the Albany Symphony Reimagine the Erie Canal
11/14 @ RPI’s Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Troy
“We are connecting many different types of people by talking about the same topics through different lenses.”
On November 14, the halls of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will shift from the usual hum of research and engineering to an atmosphere shaped by music, history, and creative reflection. The public symposium Reflections on Waterways, presented by RPI in partnership with the Albany Symphony, invites the Capital Region to experience the Erie Canal unlike anything experienced in a classroom setting. Instead, the canal becomes a living thread that continues to shape communities and identity across New York and around the Capital Region. To commemorate the canal’s 200th anniversary, RPI will open its doors to the public in a strikingly different and special way.
For many of us, the Erie Canal exists as a memory from childhood lessons about how New York became a crossroads of trade and culture. The organizers of this event — Will Gibbons, Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at RPI, and Albany Symphony Music Director David Alan Miller — emphasize that the canal’s significance is ongoing. It is part of how our region looks, how towns emerged, how migration flowed, and even how institutions like RPI came to be. Will describes the canal’s presence as foundational. “New York as we know it would not exist without the Erie Canal,” he says, highlighting that its engineering achievements still shape the world we live in today.
The symposium displays that legacy through a unique blend of art and conversation. The Albany Symphony will share film recordings from their years-long Erie Canal music commissioning project, which placed composers directly in canal communities to create pieces reflecting local histories and voices. RPI’s faculty in music technology, ecology, and history will offer responsive talks that examine the canal through science, culture, and artistic interpretation. Gibbons explains that one goal is to showcase the breadth of RPI beyond its reputation as a STEM institution. The humanities, arts, and social sciences at RPI play a key role in exploring how technology and culture inform one another, and this event offers an ideal example.
“There is something powerful about the way the arts can express complex concepts in ways that people find engaging.”
The Albany Symphony has been deeply engaged with Erie Canal history for years. David notes that the canal was once considered a staggering industrial achievement. Built in the early 19th century before the rise of railroads and engines, it created a still-water route that allowed transport between inland regions and the Atlantic, fundamentally transforming trade and settlement. He also points out that RPI’s founding in 1824 is intertwined with the canal. The massive project revealed the need for trained engineers, leading Stephen Van Rensselaer and his collaborators to establish a school dedicated to applied science. “RPI was essentially born from the construction of the canal,” David says, reinforcing that the institution’s roots and the canal’s story share a timeline and spirit of innovation.
Yet the canal’s meaning continues to evolve. While it no longer serves the industrial role it once did, it has become a recreation corridor, a heritage site, and a place where communities explore identity through public art, festivals, and environmental renewal. The Symphony’s work has followed this shift, commissioning pieces that uplift underrepresented stories connected to canal towns. There are countless stories of female activism in Seneca Falls, Black history in Schuylerville, and the Indigenous presence around Fort Plain. These works reveal the canal not as a uniform historical symbol, but as many overlapping histories.
The symposium mirrors that variety by creating space for multiple perspectives. It is designed not to present a single narrative, but to offer entry points for curiosity. For Will, the event is about connection. The canals that literally brought people together two centuries ago, bring together people from different backgrounds today.
“We are connecting many different types of people by talking about the same topics through different lenses,” Will says.
Audience members can expect both intellectual engagement and emotional resonance. The music videos featured in the program are immersive works that blend performance and narration. Meanwhile, RPI’s faculty speakers will highlight how the canal continues to inform fields like ecological engineering and music performance technology. David adds that the event is also a chance to consider the future of performance itself, especially as new media and digital platforms reshape how art is created and shared .
Ultimately, the symposium encourages attendees to leave with something more lasting than historical facts. As Will puts it, this is about both art and perspective. “The hope is that participants walk away seeing the area they live in with renewed awareness, recognizing that the waterways we pass every day carry generations of memory.”
Reflections on Waterways takes place Friday, November 14 at RPI. The event is free and open to the public.