MOUNT GREENWOOD — Aspiring pop star and Mount Greenwood native Michelle Vanda has released a video for "Young For Life," the title track off of her upcoming EP.
A review on okayplayer said, "The Los Angeles via Chicago songbird has not-so-quietly come up big with this one, waxing nostalgically-romantic over a fairly minimal accompaniment; a half-step between The xx’s melancholic pop and Adele’s full-formed balladry."
Vanda has lived in Los Angeles since 2014. She released "Moving On," her first EP, on Oct. 6, 2015. The five-song release propelled her to No. 22 on the Pop Chart for Los Angeles.
She initially fell in love with musical theater at age 3, landing a part with a small acting company in suburban Blue Island. At age 7, she starred in the summer show at Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School in Mount Greenwood.
Her parents, Ray and Julie Vanda, own Video Playground in Mount Greenwood. When she was 10 years old, her father added a recording studio to the back room of the video store at 10437 W. Kedzie Ave.
"My dad is a musician and so are my brothers, so I have a pretty musical family," said Vanda, who attended St. Christina Catholic School in Mount Greenwood.
The studio was a way to diversify the changing video rental business. But it also introduced Michelle Vanda to many different artists and musical genres, and she wrote her first song at age 13.
Vanda began turning away from the theater and toward a career in music while in high school at Mother McAuley. Songwriting became her escape, and she has more than 200 self-written songs in her catalog as a result.
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