I don’t have a shred of musical talent myself but there’s nothing I like more than a night of live music. A few friends with guitars sitting around the living room or the campfire, a good band in a bar or club or a concert setting – a good night of music can rejuvenate you for days.
Tonight I’m just back from a spectacular performance – a musical performance that just stirred my soul, put a grin on my face, that just took my breath away. It got me thinking though that much as I like Newton it’s woefully short on good musical venues and regular scheduled shows. A few times a year, there are special performances at a few locations but no real week-in-week-out musical performance spaces.
Kara has written about this issue recently in the context of the New Philharmonia Orchestra and classical music but the same problem exists for all sorts of music for all size performance groups, bands, singers.
Tonight we went out to The Center for the Arts in Natick (aka TCAN). We’ve been there probably a half dozen times in the past year for a wide variety of music. It’s an old building right in Natick Center that’s been converted into a performance space that seats roughly 300 people. It’s a wonderful venue to hear music. It’s an intimate place to hear music and it’s convenient and easy to get to. It’s staffed by mostly volunteers and it’s got a friendly vibe. Over the course of the year they feature a steady schedule of a wide variety of smaller local and national musical acts. Mixed in, they do some community theater and children’s programming. It looks to be a fabulous cultural resource for the town of Natick.
I know that’s no easy thing to pull off, especially in a town like Newton with very expensive real estate … but I can dream can’t I?
Wouldn’t a performance center make more sense at Riverside rather than a basketball court?
What about it Lenny?
Opportunities? Turtle Lane Playhouse in Auburndale and Aquinas (though I understand, some musicians are not pleased with the acoustics in the auditorium of Aquinas- though I believe it has the capacity to seat over 400 people.?
Riverside would have been the best place for this, something that the Newton Cultural Alliance and Kay Khan have dreamed of for years. Turtle Lane while wonderful was too small. Aquinas, with improvements to the acoustics and the awful seating, would be wonderful but I understadn is way to expensive for anyone to want to touch. But Kay and the NCA will not give up! Thanks, Jerry, for this post!!
I feel ya, Jerry! TCAN is great. Another venue that serves as an awesome role model is the Somerville Theatre. It’s a movie theater all the time but also hosts fantastic artists (like Punch Brothers, Dar Williams, etc) and is a wonderful community partner. I’ve also seen community dance there on arts fest days, a full-scale community production of Beck’s Song Reader Project, and an opera there. It, of course, helps that they have a beautiful old stage complete with painted ceilings and plush box seats. I had secret hopes that the now-defunct (and torn apart) AMC theater in Chestnut Hill would be transformed into something spectacular but I guess we’ll just have to wait for the next opportunity to come along. I’ll be ready though!
We are just so close to so many venues in Natick, Brookline, JP, Cambridge, Allston, Boston, etc. I don’t think it’s a lack of space per se, but with so much competition so close by, it’s hard to sustain a standout program.
Thanks Jerry, Terry, Native Newtonian and Kara. Riverside is the perfect spot for a cultural arts center in Newton, it would become a regional center, as it is close to surrounding cities and towns and easily accessible by public transportation. I have heard that the Center for the Arts in Natick (TCAN) is wonderful, and I and others would love something like this happen in Newton. I hope to see the MBTA move their maintenance system and dead trolly cars to another location, and a developer turn the shed into a cultural center overlooking the river, with opportunities for a park, retail, farmers market, restaurants, just to name a few possibilities. It could be a great a second phase for this location.
Kay, this is the best idea I’ve heard for Riverside in a long time.
@Kara – re Somerville Theatre as awesome role model. Let’s not forget MOBA in the basement 😉
Thanks to Jerry, Kay and the others for bringing this up. Whatever happens, I think we can do better than a basketball court. Gene McCarthy used to say that we needed more visionaries, dreamers, doers and poets in American public life. He also said we needed fewer lawyers, but I won’t go there. I knew McCarthy personally and he would have gotten a big kick out of knowing Jerry Reilly. I see where Max is coming from in terms of the large number of other venues in the area, but I think this might compete if there was something special about the performances that would be held there and maybe other activities could share time and space. I think it would have a leg up simply because it’s right where the T ends.
As I recall, the Totem Pole Ballroom was at the end of the trolley tracks on Commonwealth Avenue. People from Boston took full adavantage of the TPB to see and listen to good entertainment and to dance the night away. Perhaps the current and future generations could make some new magic at Riverside.
Patrick, they came by bike, by the thousands, too:
http://bikenewton.org/when-newton-was-like-the-netherlands-for-biking/norumbega_park_bike_yard_1907/
Jerry, of course! MOBA is unforgettable!