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About Rochester Public Music

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Rochester Public Music brings people together through concerts, cultural programs, and music education. Our events are free and public by design.

We turn parks into concert venues, bring artists into classrooms, and share music across neighborhoods. Our work is rooted in shared experience, local connection, and the belief that music belongs to everyone.

Music with Purpose.

Rochester Public Music is a department of the City of Rochester.

Our Programs

  • FORWARD Park Concerts: Free summer concerts in Rochester parks. Local bands, local food, and space for everyone to gather.
  • Riverside Music Series: Live music. Big names. No tickets. Large-scale concerts featuring chart-topping acts and rising stars.
  • Sound School: In-school residencies where students explore rhythm, movement, and musical identity — from hip hop and taiko drumming to close-harmony singing.
  • Passport Sessions: Free outdoor concerts during Thursdays Downtown, celebrating culture and connection through sound.

The Shackletons

@ Cook Park

When: Wednesday, August 28 | 5:30 - 8 p.m.

Where: Cook Park

Cost: Free!

RPM Forward-Cover_Shackletons

Schedule

5 p.m. | Get ready!

Come early to enjoy the space and to grab your spot before the show starts. Food and beverage vendors will be onsite. Lawn chairs, blankets, coolers and picnics are welcome.

5:30 p.m. | Valors

Minneapolis loud boys, Valors, are Ian Valor (vocals/guitar), Tanner Montague (drums), and Chad Hofland (bass). Since their debut album, Everyday Saints, they’re dishing up a fiercer sound - a no-apologies tribute to 90s rock, fueled by the relentless energy of a hungry honey badger. Their latest offering, "Play of Fools," is a rock and roll feast of smoky vocals, woofy bass, and lots of riffs, drum solos, and scorching guitar solos. Valors aren't holding anything back.

6:30 p.m. | The Shackletons

Comprised of three brothers digging themselves out from the snowbanks of Minneapolis, The Shackletons are a rock n' roll trio pedaling hooks as if they were traveling snake oil salesmen. Putting on electrifying live performances, Colin (guitar/vocals), Cameron (bass/vocals), and Evan (drums/vocals/) pitch their elixirs - distilled essences of punk, blues, indie, and whatever is leftover in stock - to suspecting customers.

Learn more about The Shackletons on their website.

Food and Beverage Vendors

  • Reubens and Things Tips and Tails
  • The Wandering Scoop
  • LTS Brewing

About FORWARD Park Concerts

These free, Wednesday evening concerts highlight local bands and regional headliners.

 

Concerts are held in six different walkable, pet friendly, and bike trail connected parks - one in each city ward. The music starts at 5:30 and wraps up by 8 pm. Come early to enjoy the park before the show, visit the bookmobile, and grab a coloring sheet and crayons for the kids!
Everyone is welcome! Picnic baskets, coolers, well-behaved pups, and blankets are encouraged, and here will be local food and beverage vendors on site.

 

Closed captioning will be available with your data-connected smart phone or tablet.

 

FORWARD: Local Music. Local Parks.

 

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