St. Augustine’s Free Music Festival: Lullaby of the Rivers

By Sarah Ellis

Few things can bring people together, like music, and Carol Kramer and the organizers of the Lullaby of the Rivers Festival have embraced just this.

The festival hosted its fifth annual event on Feb. 25, 2025, at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre. Lullaby of the Rivers is a free festival blending music, community, and climate preservation together into one common ground.

Carol Kramer and Bob Patterson founded the event to bring together and inspire the community to fight to conserve Florida’s rivers.

“It’s that concern that people are not connected to nature,” Kramer said. “It’s seeing how many people are in front of computers and their phones. They are just not connecting to the trees,  the animals and the rivers. We really believe rivers have a story to tell—that water carries a message. If you can connect with it, you’re gonna hear stuff. So, that’s what we want to do.”

Kramer leads the festival’s organization, using her event planning background to coordinate the many moving parts involved in putting together the Lullaby of the Rivers Festival.

“It’s my job to work with a team of volunteers and then recruit some of the musicians and performers—people that understand the mission and really just want to help me do it,” Kramer said. “Together we go out and find appropriate vendors, exhibitors and other nonprofit organizations. To spread their message, which is related to the message because we are all kind of one here.”

The festival creates a space for the community to learn about rivers and build connections. Kramer and Patterson achieve this through various educational initiatives alongside the festival, such as the Lullaby Buddies, which helps implement programs to continue the festival’s mission to save the rivers.

Kramer believes that people are truly at the helm of keeping Florida’s rivers safe, and the Lullaby of the Rivers Festival provides a forum for them to learn alongside like-minded peers to keep this dream alive.

“We’re attracting such a great core group of people, and having it here at the amp, we have a whole lot of new faces. I feel like this is a message that’s just going out like ripples,” Kramer said. “So, I feel like that’s the best part. It’s connecting with people who then connect with other people and they’re all out on the rivers.”

Kyle Vincent is one such person who attended the festival for the first time on a whim. It’s easy to see Kramer and Patterson’s mission shine through Sunday’s attendees. 

“I live across the street, and I saw people coming, and I saw that it was a free event,” Vincent said. “I just like how the community comes together with music and drinks.” 

Carol Adams and Larry Mikelson are attendees in their own right, coming to the festival as vendors representing St. Johns River Bartram Frolic, an event hosted by the Bartram Trail Society of Florida on April 12, 2025. 

“The special part of today was the like-minded people coming together and a great venue to spread the message of the history, and the nature and the opportunities in North Florida,” said Adams. 

Ray Ploutz, one of the onstage talents at this year’s festival, attended the rest of the event after his set. The festival’s spark brought together Ploutz and many longtime friends. 

“For me, [the best part] was running into a bunch of the people I haven’t seen in a long time,” Ploutz said. 

There were also many activists in attendance, spreading awareness for their causes. Jazs, for example, was campaigning with her petition for clean water and hoping that the festival attract like-minded people.

“I just got here, and I already got one signature for our petition for a guarantee for clean water,” Jazs said. 

Even Billy Bartram, the renowned local historical figure, made an appearance—well, sort of. An anonymous actor portraying Bartram was there to educate the children about the Bartram Trail, which runs near the Amphitheatre.

“The interactions with the young people have been amazing,” Bartram said. “As a former child myself, I can relate to them.”

Not only was the festival a success, but it’s clear that Kramer and Patterson’s goal of creating a place for like-minded people to gather and learn about nature and river preservation through this event was also a success.