Sergio Mims: Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Isata Kanneh-Mason performing at the Lucerne Summer Music Festival

Sheku Kanneh-Mason

Sergio A. Mims forwards this release from the Lucerne Summer Music Festival in Switzerland:

Lucerne Festival

Sheku Kanneh-Mason  cello

Isata Kanneh-Mason  piano

 

Luigi Boccherini (1743–1805)
Sonata for cello and piano in A major, G. 4

Francis Poulenc (1899–1963)
Sonata for cello and piano, Op. 143

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
Sonata for cello and piano No. 2 in F major, Op. 99

A string quartet that for the most part comprises siblings – that happens more often than one might think, as with the Hagen and Schumann Quartets. But the British family Kanneh-Mason may well be entirely unique, for all seven children are musicians and perform together. The most successful of them is the third oldest, who was born in 1999: the cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Award in 2016, the first musician of color in 38 years. His career has skyrocketed, leading to performances with the BBC Proms, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra. “Technically superb and eloquent in his expressivity, Kanneh-Mason held the public spellbound,” wrote The Guardian, while The Times has praised his powerful, thrilling playing and his exquisite phrasing. In Lucerne, this rising star will introduce himself, along with his sister Isata at the piano (his senior by three years), in a program of works by Boccherini, Poulenc, and Brahms.