Past Calendar Events

Sunday, July 19, 2026 / 2nd Floor Dance Studio and the VBI Theater – 12 Vassar Street / See Poster for Class Times and Information / Free Admittance – Registration Required / Click HERE to register for the Master Class and for a free ticket to the performance / BalletCollective / Willow Dance Center

Saturday, July 18, 2026 @ 8:00 pm / VBI Theater – 12 Vassar Street / Tickets: $20 Advance and $30 Door / Advance Online Ticket Purchases: Ingrid Laubrock and Cecilia Lopez Eventbrite Tickets    

Ingrid Laubrock and Cecilia Lopez

A duo of very different sort, composer/saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and multimedia artist Cecelia Lopez sculpt otherworldly soundscapes rich with electro-acoustic invention in this startling collaboration. Elysium Furnace Works

Friday, July 10, 2026 from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm / Free Admission / Refreshments will be served

• Victorian Gallery @ 9 Vassar Street – Onaje Benjamin, Jazz Photography and Shirley Parker Benjamin, Mixed Media
• Reception Gallery @ 12 Vassar Street – Meghan McDonough, Oil Paintings 
• Hancock Gallery @ 12 Vassar Street – Mukta, Oil Paintings

Saturday, June 27, 2026 @ 8:00 pm / VBI Theater – 12 Vassar Street / Tickets: $30 Advance and $40 Door / Advance Online Ticket Purchases: For Living Lovers Eventbrite Tickets       

Brandon Ross and Stomu Takeishi

String duos continue into the summer for Elysium Furnace Works with this celebrated, long-running, unplugged project featuring acoustic guitarist/banjoist/vocalist Ross and acoustic bass guitarist Takeishi, building upon their initial association in the ensembles of Henry Threadgill to craft an innovative, distinctively chamber-like approach to modern string music.  Elysium Furnace Works

Saturday, June 13, 2026 and Sunday, June 14, 2026 / VBI Theatre – 12 Vassar Street / Performance Times and Ticket Information: From Stage To Screen Acting Studio

Saturday, June 6, 2026 and Sunday, June 7, 2026 / VBI Theatre – 12 Vassar Street / Performance Times and Ticket Information: From Stage To Screen Acting Studio

Saturday, May 30, 2026 / 7:00 pm / VBI Theatre – 12 Vassar Street / $40 per person / To purchase Tickets Click HERE / A Limited Number of Tickets will be Available at the Door to Purchase by Cash Only / Open Seating

For over 25 years, The Chain Gang Band has been entertaining audiences with a 250-song repertoire of timeless tunes and genres from the 1960’s to the 1980’s as well as with critically acclaimed tribute concerts. Their Billy Joel Tribute Concert at the Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center covers the span of Billy Joel’s career that includes iconic hits such as “Just The Way You Are”, “Allentown”, “Piano Man” and “Movin’ Out”.  All of the songs are performed in their original arrangements and fans of this talented five-piece band remark that “if you close your eyes, you will think you’re at Billy’s (Joel) concert!” The Chain Gang Band is comprised of Sam Costanzo on lead vocals, Doug Abramson on bass, Dan Kalbfus on keyboards, Tom Nastasi on guitar, and Rich Iula on drums.  

Wednesday, May 20, 2026 @ 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm / Reception Gallery – 12 Vassar Street / Free Admission / Donations Welcome 

Saturday, May 16 @ 8:00 pm / VBI Theatre – 12 Vassar Street / Tickets: $20 Advance and $30 Door / Advance Online Ticket Purchases: gabby fluke-mogul and Charles Burnham Eventbrite Tickets      

gabby fluke-mogul and Charles Burnham

String duos remain the Elysium Furnace Works thing with this incendiary gathering of two contemporary violin virtuosi: educator and Creative Music Studio executive director gabby fluke-mogul joining forces with veteran Downtown musician Charles Burnham. Elysium Furnace Works

Friday, May 8, 2026 @ 7:00 pm and Saturday, May 9, 2026 @ 2:00 pm / VBI Theatre – 12 Vassar Street / Ticket Information: SRO and In Flight, Inc. The Wizard of Oz Tickets

Friday, May 8, 2026 from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm / Free Admission / Refreshments will be served

• Victorian Gallery @ 9 Vassar Street – Joel Mason, Photography
• Reception Gallery @ 12 Vassar Street – Julian Allen, Acrylics and Watercolor Paintings 
• Hancock Gallery @ 12 Vassar Street – Monika Kalra, Giclee Prints 

Sunday, May 3, 2026 / Workshops at 12 Vassar Street: 11:00 am – 1:00 pm Bad Ass Veil Belly Dance Class in the Dance Studio (2nd Floor) and 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm Instrumental Instruction of Belly Dance Rhythms in the Reception Art Gallery (1st Foor); Belly Dance Performance from 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm in the VBI Theater – 12 Vassar Street / Tickets Information: Hips of the Hudson 2

Saturday, May 2, 2026 @ 7:00 pm / VBI Theater – 12 Vassar Street / Tickets: Isadora at Flora’s Feast

Rosemary Cooper, Assistant Director of Isadora Duncan International Dance Institute, Inc.

Isadora at Flora’s Feast: Heaven in a Wildflower invites audiences into a realm between gravity and grace, where earth’s energies rise, dance becomes landscape, and spring’s promise—petal by petal—is fulfilled. The evening burgeons onstage through original and new choreography and videography shaped by garden paths, mythic winds, impassioned ardor, and the cyclical flowering of life itself. Music by Gluck, Grieg, Mozart, Brahms, Borodin, Bruch, and Strauss accompanies a sweeping arc of human experience—from budding innocence to the tempest-tossed, from athletic, radiant youth to communion with the infinite. Isadora Duncan International Institute, Inc.

Friday, May 1, 2026 @ 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm / VBI Theater – 12 Vassar Street / Click HERE to Sign Up To Attend

It is May Day—a national day of action—to push back as workers, soldiers and we will also protest the inhumane treatment of our immigrant neighbors. – For The Many

Saturday, April 25, 2026 and Sunday, April 26, 2026 / VBI Theatre – 12 Vassar Street / Performance Times and Ticket Information: From Stage To Screen Acting Studio

Junie B.’s Essential Survival Guide to School, Jr. is a heartwarming musical based on the bestselling books and continues the saga of the wisecracking first-grader who is a self-appointed expert on all things first grade.  Determined to write the ultimate guide, Junie B. deals with writer’s block, constantly gets into trouble and quickly realizes that she still has a lot to learn.

Saturday, April 18, 2026 / 11:00 am – 2:00 pm / 9 and 12 Vassar Street, Poughkeepsie, NY / $75 per person or $140 per couple / Click HERE To Purchase Online Tickets through Eventbrite / Click HERE to Make A Donation / To Pay by Check, call the Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center Administrative Office at 845-486-4571 / NOTE: Limited Capacity and No Door Sales / Ticket Price includes entry in Door Prize Raffle Drawings / Ticket Purchase Deadline is April 10, 2026

Celebrate the arts at the Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center’s fun-filled 2026 Annual Magnolia Party Brunch!

The event will be held in our two beautiful historic Victorian-age Italianate buildings beginning at 11:00 am with a music concert in the VBI Theater at 12 Vassar Street. Brunch will be served following the performance in the Grand Parlor at 9 Vassar Street. This year’s honorees are Community Leaders Maung Htoo, President of Vassar Brothers Institute and Ray Watkins, Musician and Vocalist.

This popular fundraising event includes:

• “Live” Music performances by Hudson Valley Gospel Festival Choir and Sisters in Spirit in the VBI Theater at 12 Vassar Street
• A scrumptious Hot and Cold Brunch Buffet served in the Grand Parlor at 9 Vassar Street provided by Mahoney’s Irish Pub & Steakhouse and The Bagel Shoppe
• Complimentary Bar Service of Wine, Beer, Mimosas and Soft Drinks
• Chances to win Door Prizes donated by Shadows on the Hudson, Savona’s Trattoria & Bar, Scott R. Halma Way Reiki & Reflexology, Mark Pukmel Massage Therapy, Carolyn Schlam (artwork), County Players at the Falls Theatre, CHAC Board of Directors (Basket of Assorted Wines), Jackie and Glenn Peterson (Lowes Garden Gift Bag and Gift Card), Nora and Charles Porter (Magnolia Tree)

The Annual Magnolia Party Brunch marks the memorable occasion in April of 1865 when Matthew Vassar cut a flowering branch of the Magnolia Tree at 9 Vassar Street and laid it atop President Abraham Lincoln’s coffin as his funeral train stopped at the Poughkeepsie Train Station. A descendant of that Magnolia Tree still graces the grounds of the Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center and blooms every spring just in time for the Magnolia Party.

EVENT SPONSORS

Gold Level

Vassar Brothers Institute

Bronze Level

Central Hudson

A. Page & Associates

Marshall & Sterling

NBT Bank

The Bagel Shoppe

Renaissance Kids, Inc. 

Jackie and Glenn Peterson

Wine Provided By

 Millbrook Vineyards & Winery

Saturday, April 11, 2026 @ 8:00 pm / VBI Theater – 12 Vassar Street / Tickets: $30 / Advance Online Ticket Purchases: “Strings & Things” Eventbrite Tickets    

Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Mary Halvorson

Harmolodic bass legend Jamaaladeen Tacuma (Ornette Coleman) is joined by yet another MacArthur “genius” grantee this season, guitarist Mary Halvorson in “Strings & Things”.  Elysium Furnace Works

Thursday, April 2, 2026 @ 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm / VBI Theater – 12 Vassar Street / NOTE: RSVP Only – No Walk Ins / Click HERE to RSVP to this event and for more information 

Saturday, March 14, 2026 @ 8:00 pm / VBI Theater – 12 Vassar Street / Ticket Price: $30 / Advance Online Tickets: Tyshawn Sorey and Cooper-Moore Eventbrite Tickets

Tyshawn Sorey and Cooper-Moore

Friday, March 6, 2026 from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm / Free Admission / Refreshments will be served

• Victorian Gallery @ 9 Vassar Street – Ivars Sprogis, Oil and Watercolor Paintings
• Reception Gallery @ 12 Vassar Street – Kevin Sterne, Abstract Art 
• Hancock Gallery @ 12 Vassar Street – Shirley Tuttle, Acrylic Paintings