There are extensive opportunities to experience music and theater in Onondaga County. The CNY Jazz Arts Foundation is the region’s primary provider of jazz programming in concert, cabaret, academic, and festival settings. It operates downtown Syracuse’s Jazz Central Theater, serving an audience of 80,000.

The Open Hand Theater located on the Northside of Syracuse has entertained youth and adult audiences since 1980 through the use of masks, puppets, music, and actors.

Parents Promoting Dance at One Village Dance Centre is a place for the study, creation, and performance of dance and drum in Central New York. It is dedicated to nurturing and developing cultural dance traditions and providing space for artists to create new work.

Syracuse City Ballet, formerly Upstate New York Ballet, has brought classical ballet to Central New York since 1997. Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music presents a seven-concert series of the world’s finest chamber music groups.

Syracuse Stage, Central New York’s leading nonprofit professional theater, offers a six-play season. Red House,[7] a nonprofit cultural center located in Armory Square of Syracuse, presents and produces new works in theatre, film, visual art and music.

Other performing arts venues include the Landmark Theatre, Syracuse Opera, and The Arts Branch—YMCA of Greater Syracuse.