Past Events

Juventas New Music Ensemble Presents
Concert for Peace

March 18, 2023 at 8:00 pm

Farayi Malek Band
Featuring Lihi Haruvi
With Guests Caio e Jess

March 17, 2023 at 7:30 pm

The Multicultural Arts Center brings you an evening of live music influenced by Jazz and Americana with the Farayi Malek Band featuring Lihi Haruvi. Malek is a jazz and contemporary vocalist, composer, and educator. Also in the line-up that evening will be the amazing duo Caio e Jess. Don't miss this special night full of creativity, beauty and live music!

Soca Fusion Presents
A Journey Through Weekend

March 11 - 12, 2023

Join us for a beautiful showcase that helps bring awareness to The Lung Transplant Assistance Fund at Mass General Hospital in honor of Soca Fusion’s founder and lead director, Ms Ella, and her journey through a double-lung transplant almost 2 years ago. The showcase will be followed by a full day of workshops

Celebrity Series of Boston Presents

Sandeep Das and Suhail Yusuf Khan
Soundscapes of India with Boston City Singers

February 25, 2023 at 3:00 pm

Join tabla virtuoso Sandeep Das and Suhail Yusuf Khan, who brings a rock sensibility to India’s traditional stringed sarangi, as they team up to present Soundscapes of India. We can guarantee that these two artists will present a wide-ranging concert that blends the traditional and modern, and vividly conjures the diverse landscapes, cityscapes, and cultures of India.
 

Das and Khan share the stage with students from Boston City Singers in what will be the culmination of their February vacation tabla camp, where they will spend the week learning the basics of the twin hand drums. 

In honor of Black History Month, Chelsea Black Community will bring Hear Her Sing for Freedom back to the screen again for another public viewing. The Multicultural Arts Center produced this work in January over MLK Day Weekend. In it, Natasha Ellis, in the leading role, explores the legacy of Coretta Scott King, who’s involvement in the Civil Rights Movement is often underrepresented. See the virtual performance again on February 22nd at 7pm. The performance will be followed by a live virtual talk-back conversation.

Urbanity Dance's Creative Class of Urbanity Underground and Junior Apprentice dancers will perform and present new work. 

Urbanity Underground is Urbanity's second company comprised of accomplished dancers who are pursuing various professions or advanced studies, but still want to stay connected to dance at a high level. Urbanity's Junior Apprentices are talented high school students ages 14+ who are interested in pursuing a career in dance. 

The Cambridge Jazz Foundation Presents
 

The Jazz+Soul Connection

Feburary 10, 2023 at 8:00 pm

Celebrate the voice of Farayi Malek as she explores the sounds from Billie Holiday, Donny Hathway, Cannonball Adderley, and Diana Washington.

The Bridgeside Cypher Presents
 

Love & Rhythm

February 3, 2023 at 7:00 pm

Love and Rhythm will showcase talented, local RnB artists performing with a live band. Located in the Multicultural Arts Center ballroom, it will also include a "cypher" portion, where the live band will play RnB cover songs and artists can sign up to sing and or freestyle in a fluid, collaborative concert.

There will be plenty of Valentine's day themed decorations, a photo booth, refreshments, and hor dourves. This elegant event will be the perfect place to celebrate Valentine's Day early!

Juventas New Music Ensemble performs
 

Kelley Hollis: Center Stage

January 21, 2023 at 8:00 pm

Juventas Soprano Kelley Hollis headlines this rare solo concert, with a program centered on mental health and healing.

Hear Her Sing for Freedom

A Concert by Coretta Scott King
Adapted by Najee Brown

January 13 - 16, 2023

Each year, we host an annual event in honor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. For over 30 years, we have celebrated his legacy through our Joyful Noise concert with Harlem Gospel Choir. This year, returning from a 2 year hiatus due to the pandemic, our new Artistic Director Najee Brown will be reimagining the event to focus on the legacy of Coretta Scott King, who’s role in the Civil Rights Movement is often underrepresented. Scott King presented concerts to fund the movement, and was responsible for the salaries of many of the men employed at the SCLC. In Hear Her Sing for Freedom, visitors will have the chance to experience what it might have been like to witness Coretta Scott King perform a Freedom Concert.

United Dance Presents:

The Extraordinary Nutcracker

December 9-10, 2022

Come and discover the origin story of the Nutcracker! The untold story of the Extraordinary Nutcracker by artistic director and choreographer Gianni Di Marco is an epic story ballet of love, adventure, and magic. Follow our heroine as she embarks on a magical adventure to save the love of her life. Immerse yourself in a new tradition with our holiday market, arts and crafts, and photo booth.

In this extraordinary musical pairing, Robert Schumann’s beloved Dichterliebe is intertwined with Love in the Time Of..., a brand new song cycle commissioned by BOC. 10 poets and 8 composers have created 16 new songs, each one a reflection or response to the brilliant works in Schumann’s cycle. In a fully staged narrative, this piece explores the love we aspire to and the things we must let go amidst all the promise, turmoil, wonder and heartache of the 21st century.

Tomomi Kohno

Born in Tokyo, Ms. Kohno started piano at age of 4. She has won many prestigious competitions, such as the Tokyo International Guitar Competition, Asian International guitar Competition. She is the president of The Spain-Japan Guitar Society.

Zaira Meneses

International classical guitarist, dancer, singer, and Sonja Rocho performance artist.

She is highly regarded by the international press as a leading performing artist of classical guitar. Founder and president of the Entrepreneurs' Online Academy, EFGA Music was founded in 2020 and named after her husband, world-renowned classical guitarist Elliott Fisk.

Fermata Chamber Soloists is excited to open our 5th season, featuring music from the 20th and 21st centuries. Modern and contemporary music can sometimes be a turn-off for audiences, who often feel more alienated by the sounds they hear than anything else. Join us as we bravely dive into this unique language, and uncover the powerful meaning beneath.

Poet Regie Gibson and world-funk-and-more band Atlas Soul once again join forces in a return to the Series for an afternoon of powerful words and music, featuring covers and originals, as well as Gibson’s resonant, dazzling, and thought-provoking wordplay.

Traka, the newest work from Cambridge-based Haitian choreographer Jean Appolon, means “Troubles” in Haitian Creole and explores how dance, community, and culture are pathways to healing from traumatic events. Inspired by Appolon’s own healing process after his father was murdered in Haiti’s 1991 coup, Traka uses Haitian folkloric dance and contemporary dance to depict the journey of a country and a people working through generational trauma.

Appolon teams with Haitian composer, turntablist, and Afro-futurist Val Jeanty (Val-Inc), who creates Vodou-inspired contemporary soundscapes that provide the rhythmic foundation for Appolon’s heartfelt and thought-provoking work.

Also available as a streaming performance premiering October 13, 2022 at 4pm.

Transmute is about the energy that connects us all and the soul expansion & transformation that can happen with universal love of community. One love, one light, transmuting darkness to light.

As we transmute energy for ourselves and those around us, we collectively heal humanity. Transmute brings artists together across different ages & various styles of dance, with live music, poetry, and voice. The show brings a community heart healing component in the per-formance with audience involvement and energetic healing for all. Dance styles are contemp-orary, modern, structured & contact improvisation, and ballet.

With guest artists Erica Cornejo and Carlos Molina and pre-professional dancers of Integrarte.

Flamenco a la Mexicana:

Friday, September 9, 2022 @ 8pm

In September, Mexico and Mexican people across the world commemorate Mexican Independence. However, through the heart of Mexico runs Prehispanic and Spanish blood, because Mexico is the result of a “mestizaje”, a very deep cultural mixture. Flamenco a la Mexicana is a celebration of that miscegenation of which all Mexicans are a product. It is a show created by the Mexican flamenco dancer María Aliaga, where music, costumes, dances and traditions fuse with flamenco, a Spanish art. Mexican boleros meet the chords of the Andalusian guitar, Mexican textiles turn into a flamenco dress, and La Catrina, the Mexican skull, dances flamenco. This show, created in 2014, has been presented in Mexico City and New York. September 9 at the Multicultural Arts Center will be the first time it will be presented to commemorate the Independence of Mexico, celebrating our “mestizaje”.

Mark your calendars for this rarely performed operatic gem! Composed in the late 1600s, Venus & Adonis is believed to be the earliest surviving English opera. Playful Cupid pierces his mother Venus with one of his arrows. She promptly falls in love with the beautiful youth Adonis and sends his off hunting with his comrades. Then the drama begins as Adonis is felled by a wild boar! Our opera is a fascinating window into the period and a musical gem that sparkles anew for us today.

Ekti Abhinaba Natoker Mohora (In search of a novel play) is a dark absurd comedy that reflects the state of humankind in current times. It takes us on
a spiral of stories that are repeatedly fragmented leaving one wondering what is
true. An ensemble cast of human and non-human characters create a collective collage of the despair and ludicrousness of our current life.

Off-Kendrik Presents
Ekti Abhinaba Natoker Mohora
(In search of a novel play)

Saturday, June 4, 2022, 6:30pm
Sunday, June 5, 2022, 3pm

Urbanity Dance

10th Anniversary Series

Boston Jazz United for Ukraine
A Jazz Benefit for the People of Ukraine 
Featuring Maxim Lubarsky & Special Guests 
Friday, May 13th, 2022, 7:30-9:30pm EST US

Conceived by Jay Hoffman & CJ Kelley, this event is presented by JazzBoston, the Multicultural Arts Center (MAC), and the Cambridge Community Center for the Arts (CCCA), with partial funding provided by Kjell Christiansen and Stephen Adams.

Join us for Wonderland: a Hip Hop film screening and panel conversation on Hip Hop and Placemaking. This project created by Paul Willis uses art to create a conversation about home through digital storytelling, music and community engagement.

Urbanity Dance

10th Anniversary Series

Abilities Dance Boston presents its annual performance led by Executive & Artistic Director Ellice Patterson. The show is centered on BIPOC disabled folks local and national, past and present. New England Film Orchestra will provide live accompaniment.

Juventas New Music Ensemble performs
Lungs of the City
Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 8:00 p.m.

Join Juventas as they honor the bicentennial of Frederick Law Olmsted. Olmsted is the legendary landscape architect who inspired a nation, with greenspaces that became part of the American fabric.

Nailah Randall-Bellinger and RootsUprising present
Initiation—In Love Solidarity
Friday, March 25, at 7:30 p.m

The evening will conclude with a talk-back audience conversation with Randall-Bellinger and dancers.

A Journey Through is going to be a night full of life, nourishment, and uplifting vibes! Everything about this fundraiser is rooted in holistic care and its intention to represent local artists and spaces. It's mission is to bring awareness and funding to those in need of double lung transplants via Mass General Hospital - one of the best transplant centers in this nation. A Journey Through is committed to centering the CARE that got Ms Ella, Founder and Lead Director of SocaFusion, through her life, inclusive of a drastic onset of PVOD and a double lung transplant.

Yellow Bird Chase

by the Liars and Believers Theater Company
Saturday, February 26, 2022 from 2pm - 3pm EST

A clownish maintenance crew finds a magical yellow bird and a mad chase begins! Racing over land, across the sea, and through the air – battling pirates and monsters – how far will our heroes go... without ever leaving the maintenance room?

Celebrity Series of Boston

Sandeep Das & Nino de los Reyes
Rhythm of Life 
 

Saturday, February 19, 2022 at 3pm EST

This music and dance event will trace the journey of the colorful rhythms and melodies that originated with the Roma people in the Indian village of Jaisalmer and wound their way through the ages, across Europe, to Spain and later Mexico. The repertoire will feature a collection of traditional music, original compositions, and cross-cultural collaborations between performers that draw on both the Flamenco and Indian Classical traditions. Tabla virtuoso Sandeep Das and Madrid-based flamenco standout Nino de los Reyes team up with Suhail Yusuf Khan, sarangi, and vocalist Jose Cortes to tell this fascinating and personal multicultural story.

Multicultural Arts Center presents
Cambridge Jazz Foundation Winter Concert Series

When Grammy-nominated Mack Avenue recording artist, composer, and bandleader Tia Fuller picks up her saxophone, something amazing happens. Blending technical brilliance, melodic creativity, and the performing precision drawn from both her academic and stage experience, Fuller is a force to be reckoned with in the worlds of jazz, pop, R&B, and more. Currently, Fuller balances the worlds of performance and education, fulfilling a demanding schedule as both a busy touring and recording artist and a full-time professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Mary Lou Williams wrote over 350 compositions throughout her rich and highly eclectic musical career. She also helped spawn an entire generation of young musicians during the 1940s that would precipitate the birth of one of the world’s most influential musical styles, known as bebop. Her students included musicians as influential and varied as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and countless others. Monk was a regular at jam sessions at Minton’s and Monroe’s Uptown House which have frequently been cited as the birthplace of Bebop.

Juventas New Music Ensemble Presents
in Partnership with the Multicultural Arts Center
Ryan Shannon: Center Stage

Saturday, January 29, 2022 at 8pm EST

Join us for this special celebration of the violin virtuoso Ryan Shannon and his five seasons with Juventas.

An unparalleled virtual concert experience, this performance will be broadcast live on YouTube with high definition feeds from six video cameras.

Saturday, December 18 at 7:30 PM (cancelled)
Sunday, December 19 at 2:00 PM

An innovative “micro-theatre” adaptation, The Tempest features three actors playing 11 roles and incorporates both Shakespeare’s original text and sign language. This collaboration between hearing and Deaf theatre artists explores the power of language to create or destroy, liberate or oppress against a backdrop of magic, betrayal, and forgiveness. As Prospero rules his isle and plots revenge upon his usurping brother, each character navigates their own path towards a freedom rooted in love and vulnerability rather than fear and control. 

​

This is a semi-staged reading. Thank you for joining our process as we develop this new adaptation.

Runtime: approx. 90 minutes, no intermission

Both performances will be open captioned and ASL interpreted.

Juventas New Music Ensemble performs
Source Code
Saturday, December 11, 2021 at 8:00 pm EST

Seven composers engage with their musical DNA. Join Juventas for an enrapturing concert that celebrates multigenerational journeys spanning five continents.

Listen in person at the Multicultural Arts Center, Cambridge, MA or virtually via YouTube live stream.

ALTARS Live

A celebration of culture by BIPOC artists in Boston

Sun, November 14, 2021, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM EST

ALTARS Live was an interdisciplinary event spotlighting extraordinary BIPOC artists in Boston, with performances by Grammy-nominated saxophonist Phillip Young; Boston’s Youth Poet Laureate Alondra Bobadilla; Krump champion and Season 6 winner of “So You Think You Can Dance” Russell Fergusson; Boston Ballet dancer and US Presidential Scholar in the Arts My’Kal Stromile and Brazilian dance ensemble SambaViva.

Award-winning director Mariona Lloreta’s latest film Altars was premiered, followed by a live Q&A with the audience.

☀️  Summer Series  ☀️

Liars and Believers performed Thursday, September 2nd, at this year's Summer Series.

The Multicultural Arts Center Summer Series is BACK! We returned to Centanni Park this summer to welcome an amazing line up of artists to perform outside. Stay tuned for 2022 Summer Series programming!

Thursday Sept 2
Yellow Bird Chase by the Liars and Believers Theater Company
Anna Borges Duo

Friday Sept 3
Singer Mali
Papa Sy and the Pasy Naay Leer Dance Company

For more than a dozen years the Multicultural Arts Center has partnered with Cambridge Arts and presented the largest music stage at the annual Cambridge Arts River Festival.

On Saturday, June 5, 2021 Cambridge Arts River Festival – Not the River but the Stream – a virtual festival filled with outstanding music took place via the internet. 

The Jazz, Blues and R & B Stage, curated by Producer/Creative Director Shelley Neill teamed up with Director of Video Production Callie Chapman, in capturing five solo piano concerts by some of the areas most respected Jazz musicians: Tim Ray, Kevin Harris, Rebecca Cline, Bob Toabe, and Yoko Miwa and includes an interview with each artist after their performance. 

The five piano concerts were recorded, during the day, at the Jazz Club in the Multicultural Arts Center’s Studio/Theater, providing both an acoustically excellent and visually beautiful setting, in keeping with the Jazz, Blues and R & B concerts that are intrinsic part of each year’s Cambridge Arts River Festival.

This presentation will also feature six short videos of: Billie Holiday, Terri Lyne Carrington, Shirley Horn, Art Tatum, Chick Webb and Nina Simone. They are part of a library of Jazz musicians that are in the process of being assembled by the Cambridge Jazz Foundation.

The festival enlists the support of six project partners: Cambridge Arts, The Multicultural Arts Center, Cambridge Jazz Foundation, Studio 550, JazzBoston, and Cambridge Community Television.

The Running Time is 2 hours and 18 minutes – an oasis of good music awaits you! 

Scenes from the Virtual River Festival (Left to Right: Kevin Harris, Yoko Miwa, Bob Toabe, Tim Ray and Rebecca Cline) Montage by Callie Chapman

If you attended and enjoyed the events at the Multicultural Arts Center, let us know! If there's anything you'd like to see more of, or if you have any vendor recommendations, drop us a comment on our Facebook page.