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"The cello concerto (Elgar), superbly played by Eldredge, is an outpouring of the most intimate kinds of passion and pain. Eldredge sounded like a young cellist afraid of nothing."--Chicago Sun-Times "Eldredge has a good technique and a soaring sound....Eldredge speaks with fluency and passion...You won't go wrong with Eldredge."--American Record Guide "She gives the audience a confident superior quality performance. Bright tone color with assurance throughout and she entices the listener with passion and sensuality."--Record Art Magazine "The young cellist Allison Eldredge impressed as a fine young talent...She showed good musical instincts, sound technical equipment, and - something fairly rare in young performers - a dash of temperament." - The Plain Dealer, Cleveland "Allison Eldredge...has a wonderful technique and natural rapport with that instrument, evident at her Kennedy Center Terrace Theater recital. Chopin's Introduction and Polonaise Brillante, Op.3, and a movement from the beautiful G minor Cello Sonata offered rich lyric possibilities, which found Eldredge's sound to be firm yet relaxed and capable of the full range of nuance and expression."--Washington Post "She seems destined to become one of the greatest U.S. cellists..."--Richmond Times-Dispatch "The popular Cafe Music,...featured cellist Allison Eldredge, whose experience in the Boston Trio clearly paid dividends in this high-voltage performance. Indeed, in the outer movements each player seemed to push the other towards quicker tempos, while the slow movement featured tasteful portamentos and rubatos."--The Strad (August 2008) "There were two bright debuts at the St Paul Chamber Orchestra's Thursday concert ... cellist Allison Eldredge rippled through the Haydn C major Concerto without a stumble or a sidelong glance ... The clarity of her playing in rapid passages was remarkable." -- St. Paul Pioneer Press "There was elegance and grace in almost everything she played ... Her tone was beautiful and her interpretation was expressive." - Gannett Westchester Newspapers "God gave her almost everything: personal beauty, beauty of sound, open, full of colors, rare musical sensitivity and a perfect technique. Her Haydn C major was a jewel." - Yediot Ahronot (Israel) "Eldredge is an impressive personality of considerable spirit and skill ... She is an attractively poised yet intense performer who established and immediate feeling of ownership with Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme." - Greensboro News and Record "Allison Eldredge returns the tradition of virtuoso cello playing to women. Like Jacqueline Du Pre and Willamina Suggia before her, Eldredge captures an audience with her technical ease and passionate phrasing. The brilliance and style she gave to even the most difficult technical passages marks her as a class-A artist."--Daily Bruin, Los Angeles |
What the critics say... |
"Allison Eldredge, a talented young cellist, contributed a vibrant, well-conceived account of Haydn's C-Major Concerto."--New York Times "Keep your ears on this cellist."--Chicago Tribune "Eldredge, who has already wowed Chicago Symphony audiences with her unique artistry, was even more dazzling in her rendition of this one-movement concerto (Penderecki)...the concerto is a tour de force for a cellist who is capable of displaying as wide an aural palette as Eldredge can.--Chicago Tribune |
"...Illuminating and always enchanting. Eldredge aptly zeros in on the salient characteristics...she finds and distills their common essences and offers them via virtually perfect intonation. Her spot-on double-stopping in the Chopin Polonaise Brillante is, alone, worth the price of admission. Hers is virtuosity wholly at the service of the music. She is a cellist worth watching."--Fanfare (American Record Guide) "The cellist, Allison Eldredge, played with such intensity, that, accompanied by virtuosic accessories, the wildest bumblebee-like runs and cascading doublestops, a passionate statement was made."--Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin "Out came the cellist Allison Eldredge, a vision in red. Her beauty could not disguise the fact that she belongs to "the creme de la creme" of cello talents. Her playing can be summarized in two words: Pure Passion."--Het Noord Hollands Dagblad, Amsterdam "The cellist Allison Eldredge plays with the agility of a Puma. One could hear singing voices come from within her instrument. She is a true performer, with a great feel for drama."--Het Leidsch Dagblad, Amsterdam "Ms. Eldredge and Ms. Akimoto were rock-solid. The finale was an essay in technical surety and seamless collaboration. This late Debussian mix...seemed tailor-made for Ms. Eldredge's flawless technique and intelligent musicianship. ...the extremities of range, from the most resonant low notes to ascents into the higher reaches of the fingerboard, were scant challenges for this accomplished cellist.--New Jersey's Classical Music Weekly "Eldredge was absolutely stunning in her performance."--Deseret News, Salt Lake City "Eldredge 'played like a dream.'--News and Record "Cellist Allison Eldredge is a genuine, 24-carat prodigy...Her playing of the Dvorak Cello Concerto was a revelation."--The Register-Guard "Her tone is at once both deep and silky...Her sotto voce was so beautiful and her nuances were sensuous and enticing...The passion of her soul sang in a melancholic, poetic way and she brought subtle expression to each phrase. It was an exquisite performance."--Ongaku no Tomo, Japan (Japan's Premiere Classical Music Magazine) "A performer of fiery temperament, displaying a broad range of emotions and overwhelming energy...She amazed the listener with a powerful and deeply sonorous tone."--Mainichi Daily News. Japan "In the Chopin and Faure disc, it is as if her sound was made for these composers. In her movie-broadway musical album ('If I Loved You'), she plays with unspeakably noble sensuality."--Otonapia Magazine, Japan "Cellist Allison Eldredge only had to pull her bow across the strings, and every ear...woke up. All the elements of great playing were evident within the first few minutes."--Classical New Jersey "Eldredge is the mistress of her instrument,playing with warmth and strength and technical mastery."--El Paso Times "At the risk of being criticized by feminists, we admit we used the word "stunning" for two reasons. She's as easy on the eyes as she is on the ears."--El Paso Herald-Post "Allison Eldredge took the stage for a performance of the Dvorak Cello Concerto that was big, dramatic and virtuosic, going deeper into the work than the typical crowd-pleasing account. At darker moments of the first movement, her playing was so probing that the work sounded as bleak as the Elgar concerto. Eldredge handled the formidable technical demands easily, and she had the big cello tone -- throaty in the middle register, golden and soaring in the upper -- the piece requires." - Miami Herald |
"Young cellist Allison Eldredge made the audience believe Casals had been re-incarnated in a soulful rendition of his "Song of the Birds"--San Juan Star "Allison Eldredge's 'If I Loved You' CD has to be one of the most outstanding CD's of its type on the market."--Record Geijutsu, Japan "...what subtlety and meaning she found in the waltzlike second theme! It was at once lilting and elegiac, like an aged man's recollection of a ballroom of his youth. Eldredge is eloquent and communicative -- she makes you think "opera" and, just as often, "lieder," in terms of both sound and phrasing. Her pianissimo floats effortlessly and resonantly; at forte and fortissimo,her sound intensifies as it expands in volume. Her legato is liquid. Vibrato and bow placement and angle translate into a huge spectrum of color, which Eldredge applies tellingly."--Milwaukee Journal |