Cherry Street Music at The Allen Center Reveals First Five Concerts of 2024-25 Season

Cherry Street Music, the resident music program at Newton’s Allen Center, has announced the first five concerts of their 2024-25 season.  Artistic Director Allison Eldredge has planned an intimate cross-cultural performance series featuring classical, jazz, folk, and more.  Tickets and information about Cherry Street Music performances can be found at newtonculture.org.

Cherry Street Music’s season begins Monday, September 30th at 7pm when New York saxophonist Oded Tzúr, whose ensemble has been called “The Coltrane Quartet of the 21st century” by CDJournal, performs at the Allen Center. Tzúr is known for giving his instrument a whole new voice — one that is described by The Guardian as a “unique tenor sax whisper.”  The performance will feature selections from his latest release “The Prophet.”

“Last season, our audiences at the Allen Center seemed to really enjoy the concerts that weren’t strictly classical. Whether it was our Tribute to Roland Hayes that included spirituals, art songs and arias or the Classical with a Twist- The Beatles and Beethoven concerts, they embraced the magic and beauty of music, in whatever form they experienced it.  In part, that led us to expand the musical palette for this year.”  

Sunday October 6th at 3pm, the first of this season’s Classical with a Twist concerts - Champions for Change, features music honoring musical giant, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and his staunch advocacy of human rights. Allison Eldredge and Max Levinson will perform Prokofiev’s Sonata for Cello and Piano in C major, op. 119, written for Rostropovich and pianist Max Richter in the shadow of Stalinist Soviet Union.  Prokofiev is said to have placed an epigraph on the first page of the Sonata which quoted Maxim Gorky: “Mankind—that has a proud sound.”   Works by Chopin, and film composers Maurice Jarre (Dr. Zhivago) and John Williams (Memoirs of a Geisha) will be performed by Max Levinson, piano, Allison Eldredge, cello and guitarist Andres Guerra.

440- The Gypsy Jazz Quartet takes over the Allen Center with Toe-Tapping Snappy Hot Jazz on October 26th at 7:30pm.  Led by “The Jazzy Violinist” Tomoko Iwamoto, with Jack Clark (clarinet), Jack Soref (guitar), and Gregory Toro (bass), 440 performs their own original tunes as well as those of their inspiration Django Rheinhart.  They create an evening that will transport the audience to an intimate night club where they’ll be tempted to dance the night away .

On November 17th at 3pm,  Classical with a Twist - Songs for Peace and Liberty will focus  on peacemakers and their music. Emerging artists Jakob Kobal, accordionist; Natalie Levinson, vocalist; and Jeremiah Cossia, pianist, together with Eldredge and the Cherry Street Cello Quartet will perform Pablo Casals’ “Song of the Birds”, and Piazzolla’s Libertango, along with selections by Bach, Schubert and John Lennon. The program will twist to music from the films Cinema Paradiso and The Mission (Ennio Morricone), and Schindler’s List (John Williams).

The first half of the Cherry Street Music season wraps up on December 15th with I’ve Got Rhythm with Alex Velinzon, violin, Cathy Basrak, viola, Allison Eldredge, cello and Max Levinson, piano in Gershwin favorites including Rhapsody in Blue, and Brahms’ G minor Piano Quartet. 

Programs for Winter/Spring 2025 will be announced later this year. 

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