Elysium Furnace Works Announces Its 2026 Season, Beginning With Tyshawn Sorey And Cooper-Moore On Saturday, March 14

Elysium Furnace Works is proud to announce the initial slate of performers for its 2026 season.

March 14

Tyshawn Sorey / Cooper-Moore — our season kicks off with the first-ever appearance together of Pulitzer Prize-winner and MacArthur Foundation “genius grant" fellow, drummer, composer and University of Pennsylvania professor Sorey, teaming up with the multi-instrumentalist, instrument builder, educator and creative music titan Moore for this historic encounter. Advance tickets are on sale at eventbrite.com .

April 11

“Strings & Things" with Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Mary Halvorson — our second 2026 concert features another dynamic duo when we present this highly-regarded ensemble: the harmolodic bass legend Tacuma (Ornette Coleman, James “Blood" Ulmer, Marc Ribot) joined by yet another MacArthur “genius" grantee this season, guitarist Halvorson. Advance tickets are on sale at eventbrite.com .

May 16

Gabby Fluke-Mogul / Charles Burnham — string duos remain the EFW thing with this incendiary gathering of two contemporary violin virtuosi: educator and Creative Music Studio Executive Director fluke-mogul (Pauline Oliveros, William Parker, Ava Mendoza) joining forces with veteran Downtown musician Burnham (Ulmer, John Zorn, Medeski Martin & Wood). Advance tickets are on sale at eventbrite.com .

June 27

For Living Lovers ( Brandon Ross / Stomu Takeishi ) — string duos continue into the summer 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. Advance tickets are on sale at eventbrite.com

July 18

Ingrid Laubrock / Cecilia Lopez — a duo of very different sort, composer/saxophonist Laubrock and multimedia artist Lopez sculpt otherworldly soundscapes rich with electro-acoustic invention in this startling collaboration. Advance tickets are on sale at eventbrite.com .

October 24

sinonó ( isabel crespo pardo / Lester St. Louis / Henry Fraser ) — this singular trio highlights three prodigiously talented up-and-coming artists — vocalist/composer crespo, cellist St. Louis and bassist Fraser — who weave together Latin American folk, chamber music, and free improvisation to create a space of inimitable, crackling vitality. Advance tickets are on sale at eventbrite.com .

December 12

PAKT — this prog-prov supergroup closes out our 2026 season in soaring fashion when these four enormously accomplished musicians — guitarists Alex Skolnick (Testament) and Tim Motzer (David Sylvian, David Torn, Jaki Liebezeit), fretless bass guitarist Percy Jones (Brand X, Brian Eno) and drummer Kenny Grohowski (Medeski, Zorn) — perform an completely improvised set of music notable for its peerless, expressive intensity and imagination. Advance tickets are on sale at eventbrite.com .

All of these concerts will all take place at the exquisite, 19th c. VBI Theatre of Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center, located 12 Vassar Street in Poughkeepsie, NY — each concert will begin at 8 PM.

Stay tuned for more announcements about our incredible 2026 season.

About Elysium Furnace Works

Elysium Furnace Works is a cooperative project co-led by Mike Faloon and James Keepnews. EFW seeks to present the work of vanguard artists in settings as dedicated and uncompromising as the art itself, focusing primarily although not exclusively on live music performances in and around New York's vibrant Hudson Valley. Please follow Elysium Furnace Works us on Facebook —and on Instagram @elysiumfurnaceworks.

Producing over 70 events since 2018, Elysium Furnace Works is tremendously proud of the breadth, quality and extraordinary invention of all these remarkable encounters, presenting everything from professors to punks, piano festivals to string orchestras, MacArthur “genius grant" recipients to radical singer-songwriters, boundary-pushing electronic musicians to classical virtuosi, veteran DJs to poets and spoken-word artists, book launch celebrations to documentary screenings, as well as dozens of extraordinary performances by acclaimed figures from across the vanguards of jazz, improvised and thoroughly uncategorizable musics worldwide.

As a 100%-volunteer venture without any outside financial support or sponsorship, Elysium Furnace Works relies entirely on our audience to help us defray the costs of producing these one-of-a-kind performances. We have started a GoFundMe to help underwrite our efforts to keep bringing innovative culture to the Hudson Valley, now and in the years to come — we invite our audiences to please visit our Go Fund Me page and consider donating to our online fundraiser.