Past
Events
See some of the wonderful performances hosted at Stissing Center over the last few years.
Back to the Full Event list.
See some of the wonderful performances hosted at Stissing Center over the last few years.
Back to the Full Event list.
In Banning Hall
Bees in the Barn fires up the stage with high-energy acoustic playing and a musical interplay that’s downright contagious. Their inventive, genre-bending compositions keep audiences on their toes and hungry for more. Anchored in bluegrass but pushing far past its boundaries, they craft a “beyond grass” sound—an exhilarating mix of colors, rhythms, and heart-pounding joy.
In The Grace Note
The Tom Duffy Band is a local band that hits the sweet spot where Classic Rock meets high-energy performance. They seamlessly weave through rock history, delivering hard-hitting classics that read like the soundtrack of your life.
In Banning Hall
The long-running public radio program Selected Shorts returns to the Stissing Center for an afternoon of funny and poignant tales about the people who live just beyond the next door. Presented by Symphony Space, acclaimed actors Jane Curtin (Saturday Night Live, 3rd Rock From the Sun), Joanna Gleason (Into the Woods, Hannah and her Sisters), Michael Emerson (Lost, Person of Interest), Deborah S. Craig (And Just Like That… , Elsbeth, Funny or Die) bring to life short fiction that celebrates the unexpected bonds, everyday tensions, and quiet acts of connection that shape our communities.
Our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time. Sometimes funny. Always moving. Selected Shorts connects you to the world with a rich diversity of voices from literature, film, theater, and comedy.
(Actors are subject to Change.)
In The Grace Note
Leslie Mendelson brings her soulful voice and deeply personal songwriting to Stissing Center for an intimate evening of music and connection. Blending folk, pop, and Americana, her songs feel timeless yet grounded in the present—warm, honest, and quietly powerful. It’s a chance to hear a remarkable artist up close, sharing stories and songs that linger long after the night ends.
In Banning Hall
Italian-born jazz guitarist Pasquale Grasso is a rising star known for his virtuosic, piano-like approach to the guitar. Winner of the inaugural Wes Montgomery International Jazz Guitar Competition, he records for Sony Masterworks and frequently collaborates with Grammy-winning vocalist Samara Joy. Grasso performs worldwide and is touring in support of his 2025 release Fervency.
In Banning Hall
Beauty Lou and the Country Beast is an original country-western adaptation of the classic Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, created by the Missoula Children's Theatre. The cast will feature area children, who will learn and perform the show -- all in one week!
Set in the American West, the musical follows Beauty Lou, the daughter of a bronc-bustin' balladeer named Buck. To save the family farm, Beauty Lou must befriend a miner from her past whom she calls Beast.
In Banning Hall
Beauty Lou and the Country Beast is an original country-western adaptation of the classic Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, created by the Missoula Children's Theatre. The cast will feature area children, who will learn and perform the show -- all in one week!
Set in the American West, the musical follows Beauty Lou, the daughter of a bronc-bustin' balladeer named Buck. To save the family farm, Beauty Lou must befriend a miner from her past whom she calls Beast.
In Banning Hall
Hundreds of Beavers is a 19th-century "supernatural winter epic" that functions as a silent, black-and-white slapstick comedy. The plot follows Jean Kayak, a drunken applejack salesman whose brewery is destroyed by beavers, leaving him stranded in a surreal wilderness with only his wits. To win the hand of a local merchant’s daughter, Kayak must transform into North America’s greatest fur trapper and defeat hundreds of beavers in a world where all animals are portrayed by actors in full-sized mascot costumes.
“It’s that rare thing in the current film landscape: a genuine cult classic.”
- Time Out
In Banning Hall
A proud samurai seeks a husband for his daughter at the shrine of Benten, goddess of good fortune. When a humble fisherman is chosen instead, love follows—and conflict soon turns him into a dragon. Using beautifully crafted Bunraku-style puppets and folk traditions from around the world, this poetic tale unfolds as a journey of love, courage, and self-discovery.
In The Grace Note
“In the Deep Heart’s Core” is at once a poet’s autobiography and a deeply moving journey through the romantic imagination and the national soul of Ireland. It follows the life of the Celtic visionary poet and activist William Butler Yeats, moving through dreams and heartbreaks toward ultimate spiritual triumph.
In Banning Hall
Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with the championship Irish dancers of Darrah Carr Dance! Featuring live music on the fiddle and accordion, this spirited performance of Irish traditions features high-energy selections that are enjoyed by a broad audience! The exuberant energy of the performers is quickly picked up by the audience. Lucky volunteers get a chance to join the excitement onstage!
In The Grace Note
Laura Zarougian and the Little Tree band present an evening of music in the Folk/Americana genre interwoven with stories of her songwriting journey and life as an Armenian cowgirl in the Hudson Valley.
In Banning Hall
"Makin' Cake" is more than a performance-- it's an experience! Through powerful storytelling, Dasha Kelly Hamilton takes the stage to slice into history, unpacking race, class, and culture in a way that's as thought-provoking as it is engaging.
For most of human history, baking required patience, resources ... and luck. Ingredients were scarce and expensive; chemistry was fickle; and the chain of procedures required days. When our nation began experiencing abundance for the first time, most Americans couldn’t afford basic cake ingredients.
This one-night-only event includes delicious conversation after the show and cake for all.
In the Grace Note
RiverBlue combines the musical talents of Ron Minkoff (vocals/rhythm guitar/percussion) and Dan Blum (lead guitar/vocals), both long-time veterans of the Hudson Valley music scene. Ron and Dan will play original and cover songs from their two CDs, combining rock, folk, bluegrass and country into something entirely new and exciting.
In Banning Hall
New Quartet Live features trumpeter Amir ElSaffar, drummer Tomas Fujiwara, tenor saxophonistOle Mathisen, and pianist Tania Giannouli. The ensemble blends jazz instrumentation and Middle Eastern sounds guiding the new ensemble into unexplored musical territories. The music ranges from intensely quiet and nearly silent to ecstatic and declamatory, with the microtonal piano ringing ear-opening and beautifully unconventional harmonies throughout.
In Banning Hall
Isle of Klezbos is a powerhouse all-gal klezmer ensemble infused with genre-defying artistry, performing internationally together for over two soulful, fun-loving decades. Celebrating Yiddish musical traditions with equal parts chutzpah and heart, the group blends neo-folkloric tunes, re-imagined classics, and a sophisticated sound all their own. “Rapturous and rollicking” (L.A. Blade), “intoxicating” (The New York Times). Don’t miss this fabulous band!
In The Grace Note
Please join the Galen Pittman Quartet for an evening of jazz standards, freshly reimagined with original melodies and inventive lines by some of our favorite composers. Rooted in tradition but alive with spontaneity, this performance blends familiar tunes with creative twists, inviting listeners into a warm, expressive night of jazz at its most engaging.
In Banning Hall
Charlie Chaplin’s beloved silent classic The Kid is a heartwarming blend of comedy and tenderness that delights audiences of all ages. This family-friendly gem follows Chaplin and an irrepressible child through laughter, mischief, and deep affection. Enjoy the film accompanied live by organ virtuoso Peter Krasinski, courtesy of the New York Theatre Organ Society.
In The Grace Note
A staged reading of the new original musical, The Maker and the Muse, follows a young, disillusioned writer who feels untethered from the present and longs for a time and place that felt more authentic, gritty, and alive. Let’s reimagine the past, rediscover the present and celebrate the timeless power of art together.
In Banning Hall
Matt Turk and C Lanzbom joined forces to form Deadgrass, a string band jamgrass adventure through Jerry Garcia’s musical world. Bassist Dave Richards, banjo player Kris Bauman and fiddler Kensuke Shoji complete this fine group of seasoned pros exploring the life works of Jerry Garcia on the instruments that first inspired him. Deadgrass celebrates and interprets the music of Jerry Garcia, drawing from Old & in the Way, JGB, Jerry’s Jug Band days and Grateful Dead.
In The Grace Note
Join Palestinian master musician Zafer Tawil and Rabbi Zachi Asher for a magical evening of old and new Arabic sounds, transportive trances and prayers and Sufi melodies to whirl us into enchantment.
In Banning Hall
Jungle Love - five-time Best of the Hudson Valley winners (2021–2025) - returns to Stissing Center for our Valentine’s Day Community Dance. More than a band, they’re an experience: six lifelong musicians delivering a high-energy journey through Classic Soul, R&B, Motown, Disco, and Funk from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. For this special Valentine’s Day Community Dance, we remove all seating from the center of the auditorium so you can dance with your sweetheart, and your friends and neighbors, all night long.
In The Grace Note
Natalia Zukerman brings intimate storytelling and masterful musicianship to the stage, blending folk, blues, and Americana with wry humor and emotional clarity. Her warm voice and fluid guitar work create a space that feels both personal and expansive. A Zukerman concert is equal parts porch-side conversation and poetic journey — inviting, soulful, and deeply resonant.
In Banning Hall
Stand-up comedy has become a hilarious Stissing Center tradition, and this night delivers. Headliner Ophira Eisenberg (NPR, The Moth, Comedy Central) brings her sharp, fast, relatable wit, joined by Jenny Rubin, Shawn Hollenbach, and Will Purpura. Expect big laughs, punchlines that sneak up on you when you least expect them, and the kind of comedy night that reminds you why laughing together matters.
In Banning Hall
THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT
Stissing Center’s Season Launch Event, Spark!, offers a preview of our exciting 2026 season, and we are delighted to welcome our very special guest artist Rosanne Cash. A celebrated composer and singer-songwriter, Cash has earned four Grammy Awards and fourteen nominations. She is also the author of the acclaimed memoir Composed, a New York Times bestseller. A respected voice in American music history, she became the first female composer to receive the MacDowell Medal in 2021.
In 1983, comedian Richard Lewis and Nurit Koppel met in a bodega on Eighth Avenue — and they became instant best friends. Apologies Necessary is the story of that friendship, the love affair that blossomed from it and all the growing up they both had to do to reconnect decades later.
Windborne’s album “To Warm the Winter Hearth” smashed records and became the 5th most-backed album crowdfunder of all time! Now Windborne is bringing a full show of their favorite songs of the season to Stissing Center!
A joyful and heartfelt celebration of song, Windborne’s lush vocals and unique arrangements bring light to a dark time, as they draw on midwinter music from traditional, classical, and folk from the US, British isles and beyond. Unique from their typical show, the holiday spirit is accentuated with added instrumentation, from banjos and guitars, to Lithuanian Kanklės, and Irish bodhran.
Get in the holiday doodle spirit!
Join us for a merry evening of music, munchies, and one-of-a-kind art by local legends and celebrity creators. Bid on festive doodles that make perfect gifts, all to support The Stissing Center’s arts and community programs. Let’s draw together for a great cause!
Get ready to sleigh the season at Holiday Trivia Night at Stissing Center! Hosted by the always-entertaining Alec Sisco, this festive evening will test your knowledge of holiday pop culture, from classic TV specials and iconic movies to quirky holiday traditions.
Join us for a memorable night of folk music with the legendary Kingston Trio! Get ready to tap your feet and sing along to their iconic hits like "Tom Dooley" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” Folk legends reborn—keeping the timeless sound alive for a new generation.
