Anna Litvinenko. Time was when a cello soloist, either in recital or in front of an orchestra, was a comparative rarity; at least, it was that way when I was much younger.

But these days, the cello has really come into its own as an instrument on which it’s possible to make a big career, and I’ve seen a lot of fine players in the past couple decades doing just that. This Friday night, a very young local cellist, the 16-year-old Anna Litvinenko, performs in a free recital at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Coral Gables. She’s made a good local name for herself with her work, and she’s already got a lot of performances behind her, on radio (From the Top), abroad, and with area ensembles.

Here, for example, is the second half of the first movement of the Dvořák Cello Concerto, probably the supreme concerto for that instrument, in a concert last year with Eduardo Marturet and the Miami Symphony. Litvinenko handles this very difficult, passionate music with a lovely, direct sound and strong technique.

I also like this earlier performance of hers, in the first movement of the Brahms Sonata No. 1 (in E minor, Op. 38), a beautiful, darkly colored work in which you can hear more of the quality of Litvinenko’s tone production. It’s a good performance in general, and especially good for someone just 14, as she was here.

On her program Friday night, Litvinenko will perform the wonderful but underappreciated Shostakovich Cello Sonata, the prelude from the Lalo Cello Concerto, a suite for solo cello by the Catalan cellist and composer Gaspar Cassadó, the Elegie of Gabriel Fauré, and a Cassadó arrangement of the Intermezzo from Enrique Granados’ opera Goyescas. It’s an impressive program, and surely will be well worth hearing.

Jonah Kim. A young cellist making a name for himself further north in Palm Beach County is the South Korean musician Jonah Kim, who studies at the Lynn University Conservatory of Music in Boca Raton after graduating from the Curtis Institute. I heard Kim , who’s in his early 20s, play a powerful reading of the Shostakovich First Concerto earlier this year, and he undoubtedly is a talent worth watching as he makes his way in the classical world.

In concert, Kim plays with obvious joy in what he’s doing, and he is an exciting player to watch as well as hear. Here he is playing the slow movement of the Rachmaninov Sonata.

There’s something magnetic about the cello in general that appeals to listeners and I think must be appealing to young players today. It’s got that keening sound that’s close to the human voice, and it’s all the more remarkable because it looks so awkward to play. The Argentine cellist Sol Gabetta brought the Barber Cello Concerto through the area this past season with the Detroit Symphony, and there, too, the visual effect – a woman with the carriage of a petite ballerina playing not just Barber but a wild solo piece by Peteris Vasks – combined with the music she pulled out of it was most striking to see.

Perhaps Yo-Yo Ma’s career has been the impetus for making the cello so hot, though my only evidence for that is anecdotal. Still, it seems to me that there are a number of younger players choosing the cello these days, and with the depth of repertoire available for the instrument and the increased viability of a career as a professional, we should be able to hear many more recitals such as the one Anna Litvinenko will play this Friday night.