Beginning Beats with Allison Cherry

A dedicated music educator for over 20 years, Allison Cherry has a varied background in the field of music education. Her past experiences include teaching music in preschool classrooms, K-5 classrooms, community centers, and instructing private lessons in voice and piano. Additionally, she served as Director of Education and Silicon Valley Outreach at the (former) San Jose Symphony, as a project manager at Ravinia Festival and as Early Childhood & General Music Department Chair and Program Manager at Merit School of Music. As an arts administrator, she was responsible for creating and implementing curriculum materials for schools and community members as well as supervising and mentoring teaching artists. “Music and young children are my passions. I strive to make learning fun and engaging from the first class so that children will see the life long benefit of music.”

Allison received her Bachelor of Music in Music Education degree from St. Mary’s College, Indiana, with a concentration in voice and piano. She received additional training in educational leadership from the University of Notre Dame and in music education from VanderCook College of Music. She holds certification in Kindermusik and Orff Schulwerk levels I & II. 

Allison is married to Mike and they have four children, Owen, Sean, Liam and Maeve. In addition to teaching, she enjoys singing at St. Francis Xavier Church in La Grange and volunteering in her community.