MLK Day Celebration Concert

Join the SBSO for this tribute celebration commemorating Dr. King and diversity in our community. This dynamic performance is the grand finale of the day-long celebration of Dr. King all across South Bend. The SBSO will feature Ifetayo Ali, 14 year-old cello phenom and Junior Division Winner of the 2017 Sphinx Competition.

Ifetayo Ali, 14, began her musical studies on violin and switched to cello when she was 4 years old. Her teachers and coaches have been Lucinda Ali Landing, Megan Lauterbach, and Martine Benmann at the Hyde Park Suzuki Institute, Tahirah Whittington, Oleksa Mycyk, and Hans Jørgen Jensen. She has also studied with teachers at summer music camps at Suzuki-Deerfield, Illinois Wesleyan, Sphinx Performance Academy, and Meadowmount. 

Ifetayo is the Sphinx Competition Junior Division 1st Place Laureate for 2017 and the 2nd Place Laureate for 2016 and performed as soloist with the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra at Orchestra Hall in Detroit.  She was one of the winners of the 2016 DePaul Concerto Festival for Young Performers and performed as soloist with the Festival’s Oistrakh Symphony Orchestra. 

Ifetayo was honored at the Friends of the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra Rising Stars Showcase at age 10, when she recorded the 1st movement of the Saint-Saëns ​Cello Concerto (No. 1)​. To date, this video has over 48,000 YouTube views and over 8 million Facebook views. She also recorded ​“Celtic Hymn” ​by James MacMillan​ who discovered the video and complimented Ifetayo via Twitter. Her most recent YouTube recordings are the 1st movement of the Shostakovich ​Cello Concerto (No. 1) and ​Pampeana No. 2 ​by Alberto Ginastera​.

Ifetayo also enjoys singing, dancing, and playing piano.

This concert made possible in part with support from the African American Fund of the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County.