15-year-old Ifetayo Ali-Landing will make her Chicago professional debut next month in a pair of concerts with the Chicago Sinfonietta orchestra.
Ali-Landing is a teen cello prodigy whose talents won her some of the highest honors at musical competitions including her solo performance of “Lalo’s Concerto in D Minor” with the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra in Detroit, Michigan where she won the 2017 Junior Division First-Place Laureate.
The instrumentalist initially played the violin at the age of 3 but chose to switch to the cello. Music runs through her veins. In addition to several siblings and elders in her family playing an instrument, Ali-Landing’s mother also owns music school Hyde Park Suzuki Institute.
One of Ali-Landing’s concerts will take place at the Chicago Symphony Center, a place she feels honored to perform, especially for her age.
“It means a lot,” she told “Chicago Tonight” host Paris Schutz. “I’ve seen a lot of people perform there and I’ve always wanted to perform there, but now I get a chance to perform there with Melissa White,” a Black world renown violinist.
Landing said her musical influences are Mozart and Shostakovich, a Russian composer.
On wttw’s “Chicago Tonight” show, she performed classical’s “Allegro Appassionato in D Major” and “Song of the Black Swan” by Heitor Villa-Lobos.
