Ifetayo Ali-Landing
(Patrick Gipson Photography)
Sixteen-year-old cellist Ifetayo Ali-Landing has been playing string instruments since the age of 3.
Ravinia’s much-anticipated symphonic tribute to Leonard
Bernstein on Saturday will be a impressive fete. “Man For All Music”
will celebrate his greatest works from “West Side Story” to “Mass” and
will be hosted by the late composer’s daughter Jamie Bernstein and
feature the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by the elder
Bernstein’s sole female protégé Marin Alsop.
The storied night will also mark the CSO debut of
16-year-old cellist Ifetayo Ali-Landing, who will be one of seven
soloists in the program.
The Hyde Park native has been playing string instruments
since the age of 3, starting on violin and quickly moving to cello. She
was the Junior Division First-Place Laureate in 2017 in the noted Sphinx
Competition (put on by the Sphinx Organization, which is devoted to
supporting people of color in classical music). Ali-Landing has also
performed with the Wilmington, North Carolina Symphony, the New World
Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida, the Pittsburgh Symphony and Buffalo
Philharmonic, among many other notable orchestras. Other than an
appearance with the Chicago Sinfonietta, the up-and-coming star’s debut
at Ravinia will be among the rare few opportunities she’s had to perform
in her home city.
“It’s nerve-wracking,” Ali-Landing says, laughing. “My
friends and family all will be watching the performance. But I’m really
excited. I want to show them what they have been helping with over the
past 13 years, and make them proud.”
Ali-Landing hails from a long lineage of exceptional
musicians. Her grandfather, James Holland, a Chicago Police Officer and
part-time teacher, played in regional orchestras and passed on the gift
to his daughters, including Lucinda Ali-Landing, Ifetayo’s mother.
“We lived on the South Side and my dad drove us to
Evanston two to three times a week to learn at what is now the Music
Institute of Chicago,” Lucinda says, adding, “It made no sense to me why
there wasn’t something closer where we could study.”
In 1998 Lucinda Ali-Landing changed that, establishing
the Hyde Park Suzuki Institute, a nonprofit that offers lessons to
children ages 3 and up in violin, viola, cello and piano based on the
renowned Suzuki method, which uses a linguistic approach to teaching
music.
“I thought it was important to start a school on the
South Side of Chicago that provided high-level instruction that was
economically viable for people,” says Lucinda, noting that the school
can draw upwards of 250 students in its most popular terms. Ifetayo and
her sisters, 19-year-old Adjedmaa and 10-year-old Kai Isoke have all
attended and racked up considerable achievements; for Ifetayo, her
greatest so far may be the 12 million views on Facebook for a video in which she recorded the 1st movement of the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto when she was just 10 years old.
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