Allison-Yoshie Eldredge is a world-renowned cellist, founder and director of the new Cherry Street Players, and the first Artist in Residence at the Allen Center, on Webster Street in West Newton. In 1854, Nathaniel Topliff Allen, a disciple of Horace Mann, Massachusetts Secretary of Education, opened the West Newton English and Classical School, a model of innovative educational ideas and a multi-racial, diverse co-educational student body. Today, the Allen Center houses the Newton Cultural Alliance, a creatively diverse group of artists and cultural organizations, including Allison-Yoshie Eldredge and her new venture, The Cherry Street Players.
In the decade since the Newton Cultural Alliance purchased the Allen House, the building and adjoining barn have undergone major renovations to provide performance and rehearsal space as well as offices and meeting rooms. At the same time, the Allen House retains its mid-nineteenth century aura, with photographs of the Allen family and their students, as well as the renovation process captured by Newton resident, Tira Khan. The first floor, with its mid-19th century furniture, fireplaces, floor-to-ceiling windows, with glimpses of Webster Street, is a beguiling recreation of Newton’s earlier intellectual and cultural innovation. Allison-Yoshie Eldredge — born in New York, performing around the world since she was fifteen, with her peerless talent, imagination and radiating energy — is the twenty-first century continuity.
“I felt the whole world revolved around music,” Allison says in describing her childhood surrounded by musicians. Her mother (who came from Japan to study piano at New York’s Juilliard School), grandmother, and other relatives were pianists. She started playing the piano when she was three. But she “needed to find my own voice.” That opportunity came in her public school orchestra, where the piano was not an option. Instead, Allison asked to play the violin, which was also taken, leaving only the cello. “I didn’t know what a cello sounded like. It looked really large for me, but after hearing it for the first time,” she says, “I fell in love. There was absolutely no turning back.” The cello became her “passion.”
Traveling with a cello as a young musician in New York City was physically demanding. She was small, as were her hands. Fortunately, her father taught her weight lifting, which made her adept at transporting her cello around, and on the large cello, she learned to stretch her hands in the early stages, which helped her in later years to get around the cello with ease.
At fourteen, Allison enrolled in Juilliard’s pre-college program and began studying cello with the late Harvey Shapiro, principal cellist of the NBC Symphony under Arturo Toscanini. Yo-Yo Ma was another of her early mentors. “I was truly blessed to receive attention and musical care from these most exceptional human beings and artists. Though remarkably different from one another, they both had the wittiest senses of humor, which I enjoyed frequently. They also both exemplified that musicians were forever students, seeking to learn unceasingly!!” Whereas Harvey Shapiro demonstrated the importance of subtlety in musical styles, deep phrasing, rhythm, beauty of sound and how to make a wide range of colors, Yo-Yo Ma “inspired approaching each piece as a storyteller does, through creative, thoughtful and expansive interpretive ideas and curiosity — repeatedly asking what the composer might have be highlighting. He had endless questions for me to consider. It was so humbling and exciting. Yo-Yo was awe-inspiring. My hero!”
Having begun her professional life in her teens — traveling around the world, listening to and playing with major musicians — enlarged her view of music as a community unifier. She wanted to give young musicians the opportunity she had to “rub shoulders” with great artists.
Allison and her former husband, also a concert artist, moved to Newton to raise their two daughters in a place where their girls would have the opportunity to find their “passion!” She praised Newton’s “artistically rich music, dance and academic education,” Boston Ballet, Joanne Langione Dance Center, and Newton North’s ambitious Theater Ink and Community Inc productions, all of which her daughters loved. “I fell in love with Newton through my children,” Allison said, noting that Newton is “incredibly artistically rich in education and local talent. Newton North offers both performance art and technology. Few other public school systems and communities have such deep resources,” she said.
Motherhood was another passion for Allison, who devoted herself to raising her daughters, traveling less, playing the cello closer to home, engaging in the Boston-area musical scene and teaching. In a parallel trajectory, Adrienne Hartzell Knudsen — cellist and managing director of the Allen Center and Newton Cultural Alliance as well as executive director of Newton’s New Philharmonia Orchestra — has been a moving force in developing Newton’s cultural community. Although Allison and Adrienne are both artistic visionaries committed to expanding the scope, range, and audience for performing arts in Newton, they had not met until last year. Adrienne invited Allison to play with the New Philharmonia, and Allison learned of Adrienne’s vision and development of the Allen Center as an artistic community center. In turn, Allison and Adrienne discussed thoughts on curating a new concert series to which Adrienne offered Allison the opportunity to become artistic director and Artist-in-Residence — which became a literal fact, since Allison now occupies the Allen Center’s apartment.
Out of their collaboration, Allison formed and developed the new chamber music series — Cherry Street Players — whose logo symbolizes both Cherry Street on one side of the Allen Center as well as the iconic Japanese cherry blossom. Cherry Street Players inaugurated its first “Classical with a Twist” concert on October 7th in a tribute to Ukraine. Concerts in the series will be performed on a monthly schedule through June (with a winter hiatus in February). Each concert reflects issues of our times. Their third concert, ‘Viva Maestra” — taking place on December 2 at 3PM — “focuses on music composed or inspired by women,’ featuring Allison playing cello, local residents Miki Sawada, pianist and Markus Placci on violin and known cellists from Newton including Nancy Hair, Adrienne Hartzell Knudsen, Nathan Kimball, and young aspiring cellists from Newton and Allison-Yoshie Eldredge’s cello studio. One of the fun pieces on the program — Airport Jog, by Andrea Casarrubios — was inspired by the gauntlet of challenges cellists face in negotiating their instruments through airports.
Each concert includes a prelude recital performance, refreshments, and an informal exchange between artists and audience. Cherry Street Players and the Allen Center’s acoustically attractive Great Hall invite audience engagement.
For Allison-Yoshie Eldredge, “Culturally reflective music is such a beautiful way to bring us together. There’s plenty out there that pulls us apart. The Allen Center is a gathering house to embrace diversity, vision and Newton’s inclusive culturally-minded community, with joy and beauty in the spirit of Nathaniel Allen.”
