MUSIC FOR THE OCEAN

A Live Show for Ocean Conservation

Music for the Ocean is a multimedia concert experience created to raise awareness and funds for ocean conservation - especially coral reefs. The show combines live classical & electronic music with video animations & sound design to create an immersive "nature documentary for the concert hall".

INSPIRING AUDIENCES TO FALL IN LOVE WITH THE OCEAN

“I was genuinely moved by the entire design of the concert — the flow, the choice of fish species, and how seamlessly the music, visuals, and lighting came together. It felt so thoughtfully crafted. I especially loved the opening and the final chapters, they stayed with me long after...”

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Momo Wang - Animation Director, Creator of Tuzki

“It was really an incredible experience - like witnessing a cross-genre movie/play/experience for the first time - it blew me away both with the artistry and how heart-centered it was - Got chills so many times! I love and interact with the ocean a lot and this gave me a deeper understanding of the experience ocean animals are having because of us.”

photo by Alex Garza

David Neptune - documentary filmmaker, musician, and instrument producer

MEET THE ARTISTS

  • Chad Cannon

    COMPOSER-VIOLINIST

    Emmy-nominated composer and main featured artist of Music for the Ocean. Recently PADI-certified and completely in love with marine life.

  • Hui Wu

    PIANIST

    Prodigious concert pianist, praised as “sparkling” by The New York Times. Has creative approach to programming, stemming from a contemporary/classical music duality. Soloist appearances have included Bulgarian National Radio Symphony, Salzburg Philharmonic, Fort Worth Symphony, and New Juilliard. Festival appearances have included Taos School of Music, Yellow Barn, and Beijing International Music Festival.

  • Timothy Rauch

    ANIMATION

    Co-creator of “StoryCorps: The Animated Series”, which earned a Peabody, 4 Emmy and 2 Annie nominations. Supervising Director on musical anthology series “We The People”, which received an Emmy, a NAACP Image Award, and a GLAAD Media Award while working with President Barack Obama & First Lady Michelle Obama, H.E.R., Janelle Monae, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Brandi Carlile, and more.

  • William Chen

    AUDIO/STAGE DIRECTOR

    Emmy-nominated audio engineer with credits such as Encanto and She-Hulk and extensive expertise in classical music. Has worked with Camerata Pacifica, Kaleidoscope, and Da Camera Society, with festival work including NY Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and the Emerson Quartet.

  • Evan Murnane

    LIGHTING DESIGNER

    Lighting director for Camerata Pacifica for 9+ years. Specialist in chamber & experimental music concerts. Theatrical lighting design runs in the family (son of an accomplished theatrical lighting designer in Minneapolis).

Actual, Measurable Impact for Coral Reef Conservation

Music for the Ocean has a formal partnership with Tela Coral, a nonprofit working to preserve critically endangered coral species in the Caribbean. Tela, Honduras, has some of the last healthy elkhorn/staghorn coral colonies anywhere in the world. These species were declared extinct in Florida in October 2025.

Please consider giving to our Music for the Ocean x Tela Coral gene bank / marine biology lab fundraiser campaign here - so far we’ve raised over $43,000! Funds are already being used to construct the facility on the coast in Honduras, the first of its kind on the mainland of Honduras.

Follow along at telacoral.org for more information!

Where We’ve Been

Launched in 2025, Chad and his team have performed this show, or elements of it, for around 4,000 people in the Bay Area, Yamaguchi and Osaka, Japan, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, Los Angeles, Glendale, Austin, Salt Lake City, and College Station, TX. Stay tuned for more shows, and follow along at Tela Coral for the latest info about the show and the marine biology lab progress.

Support the show by purchasing the studio recording, now available on Bandcamp!

Read about Music for the Ocean in Oceanus Magazine, as well as this feature in the Deseret News (Salt Lake City).

Electroreception - a piece with whistling, violin, and electronics that takes us to the deep sea where creatures sense electricity.

Bioluminescence - a beat-based track using deep sea hydrophone recordings.

The Call of the Reef: this piece uses coral reef hydrophone recordings taken by Dr. Aran Mooney (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) in St. John’s, US Virgin Islands.

A celebration of the return of Pacific Bluefin Tuna populations after they were nearly decimated in the early 2010s.