Ravinia 2019, Issue 4, Week 8

IFETAYO ALI-LANDING, cello Ifetayo Ali-Landing began her musical stud- ies on the violin and switched to cello at the age of 4. The 16-year-old’s teachers and coach- es have included Lucinda Ali-Landing, Megan Lauterbach, and Martine Benmann at the Hyde Park Suzuki Institute in Chicago, as well as Ta- hirah Whittington, Oleksa Mycyk, and Hans Jørgen Jensen. Additionally, she has attended the summer music camps of the Chicago Su- zuki Institute (Deerfield, IL), Illinois Wesley- an University, Sphinx Performance Academy, Meadowmount School of Music, and the Young Artists Program. Ali-Landing was named the first-place laureate of the Sphinx Competition’s Junior Division in 2017 and subsequently per- formed as a soloist with the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra in Detroit’s Orchestra Hall. She was awarded as the second-place laureate of the same competition in 2016, when she was also named one of the winners of the DePaul Con- certo Festival for Young Performers, after which she made a solo appearance with the festival’s Oistrakh Symphony Orchestra. Ali-Landing has also been featured with such ensembles as the Wilmington (NC) Symphony, New World Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Pitts- burgh Symphony Orchestra, South Bend Sym- phony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Elgin Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Sinfonietta, and Southwest Michigan Symphony. Her recordings, radio, and television appearances include Holes in the Sky with Lara Downes, “White Christmas” for Jessie J with the Matt Jones Orchestra, NPR’s From the Top episode 349 with host Christopher O’Riley, WTTW’s Chicago Tonight , and WFMT radio’s Introductions . In 2013, at the age of 10, Ali-Land- ing was honored at the Friends of the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra Rising Stars Showcase, where she recorded the first movement of Saint- Saëns’s First Cello Concerto. To date, the video has over 100,000 views on YouTube and over 15 million on Facebook. She has most recently made video recordings of the first movement of Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto and Gi- nastera’s Pampeana No. 2. Ifetayo Ali-Landing is making her Ravinia and Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuts. HARMONY ZHU, piano A multitalented 13-year-old, Harmony Zhu be- came the youngest “Young Steinway Artist” at age 10 and has been featured three times on The Ellen DeGeneres Show , as well as on NPR’s From the Top and CBC News, among other shows, for her exceptional gifts in piano, composition, and chess. Having performed with such conductors as Leonard Slatkin, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and John Giordano, she will be making her debut on Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium stage this fall, and last season she toured with the Israel Philharmonic, appeared on three concerts with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and made solo debuts at the Ravinia and Aspen Festivals. The previous year, she was featured on the Philadel- phia Orchestra’s season-opening concert, and in the spring of 2016 she was a Resident Artist of the Week with the Peoria Symphony Orches- tra, featured extensively on local TV and radio programs. She returned to the orchestra that fall as soloist in Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto, performing her own cadenza, under the ba- ton of George Stelluto. Zhu has been a student of Yoheved Kaplinsky at Juilliard’s pre-college program since 2014, and she won its concerto competition during her first year of study at the school. She has also consistently won top competition prizes while competing within age categories above her own. An accomplished composer and improviser, Zhu also studies composition with Ira Taxin and has begun play- ing violin as well. She was named among the 30 top Canadian musician under 30 by the CBC when she was only 8 years old, and she held the world champion title in the under-8 category af- ter winning the World Youth Chess Champion- ships in 2013. Harmony Zhu made her Ravinia debut last summer on “Leonard Bernstein, 100 Years Young: A New Young People’s Concert,” and tonight she makes her Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut. WINDY CITY PERFORMING ARTS ERIC ESPARZA, director Windy City Performing Arts is the independent not-for-profit umbrella organization for Windy City Gay Chorus and Windy City Treble Quire. Founded in October 1979, Windy City Gay Cho- rus is the oldest gay chorus in the Midwest—as well as one of the first gay choruses organized in the country—and is a founding member of the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses (GALA). Windy City Gay Chorus has performed throughout the United States and has been laud- ed by the Illinois House of Representatives and the mayors of Minneapolis–St. Paul, Denver, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC, as well as Chicago mayors Rahm Emanuel, Rich- ard M. Daley, and the late Harold Washington. Windy City Treble Quire was formed in 1996 un- der the name Aria: Windy City Women’s Ensem- ble, and it quickly became an audience favorite, performing at GALA Festival 2000 in San Jose to rave reviews. Now, with a new name that reflects a chorus encompassing singers who self-identify as female, male, straight, gay, trans*, or bisexual, Windy City Treble Quire embraces its role as a totally inclusive chorus. The word “Quire,” an old English spelling of “choir,” also gives voice to chorus members who identify as queer. Sopranos Beth Bellinger Beth Bergmann Casey Daniel Valerie Demma Ali Hecimovich Bailey Jones Kathleen Katsikeas Leslie Kuhagen Therese Lee Kathleen Lewis-Foley Erin Marshall Michelle Mayes Cat McKay Stephanie Norwood Nicole Parrini Laura Saunders Dannie Shaw Betsy Sorensen Meggie Twible Lauren Wozniak Kendra Zusag Altos Laura Adkins Ash Berg Kelsey Braman Mary Chaiken Andre Chan Mariana Olga Cisneros Bravo Candice Conner October Gunawan Caitlin Guzman Holly James Jennifer Kramer Sharon Lee Kristen Lemke Ann McCallister Alyce Meyer Valency Muldoon Robyn West Tenors Louis Barrera IV Andy Benich Brian Biddle Devin Bopp Michael Bredenkamp William Colson Bill Dunkley Eric Esparza Joselito Gatdula Mark Hein Christopher Hinkle Ryan Johnson Christopher Lamb Kevin Larson Joe Lusignan Benjamin Millard Marquise Neal William Rosen Zane Sade Brian Smith Christian Wacker Ken Woodhouse Basses Kenton Anderson Jancko Arias John Bowen Rick Calmelat Scott Clodfelter Tim Coghill G. David Drury Geoff Duffy Curt Eakle Rod Earles Stephen Edfors Mark Hagner Andy Halvorson Kenneth Hundrieser David Jaffe Michael Kennedy Mark Morris Russell Pagano John Reents Ryan Rollinson Mark Sherkow Arthur Stark James Weber Korey White RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JULY 22 – JULY 28, 2019 114