NYT.com: The Sheku Effect: A Classical Music Star Rises

Sheku Kanneh-Mason practices before playing for a group of schoolchildren in Baltimore in January.Credit...Greg Kahn for The New York Times

The New York Times

By Zachary Woolfe

• June 4, 2020, 10:00 a.m.

BALTIMORE — On a Friday evening a few months ago, when it was entirely normal to be in a packed concert hall, Sheku Kanneh-Mason finished playing Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto No. 1 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

The British cellist had torn through the classic piece, which unfolds in a 20-minute whoosh.

“It just kind of starts,” he had said at lunch that afternoon. There are no gaps between the concerto’s sections, so no breaks for awkward throat clearing. No big solo cadenza stops the momentum. Mr. Kanneh-Mason’s playing is more poised than fiery: levelheaded, though not exactly cool. But the enameled sunniness of his tone — milky yet bright — took on dashing spirit in the headlong sprint to the end.

Mr. Kanneh-Mason, who turned 21 on April 4, walked offstage to a loud ovation, then stood with his cello for a few seconds before heading back on for an encore. When he emerged, the audience greeted him with a roar. Marin Alsop, the Baltimore Symphony’s longtime conductor, smiled as she watched from backstage.

“It’s good,” she said. “We need another star.”

But if Mr. Kanneh-Mason continues to rise through first-name recognizability — it’s “SHAY-koo” — ticket-selling power and millions of Spotify streams, he will be more than just another star who can anchor galas and assure capacity crowds. He will be what the classical music world has long lacked: a black headliner. Orchestras have a stunningly low number of black and Latino members, and the numbers are even grimmer when it comes to concerto and recital soloists.

“The arena is still devoid of stars of color,” said Afa S. Dworkin, the president of the Sphinx Organization, a nonprofit devoted to diversifying classical music.

If Mr. Kanneh-Mason becomes a figure as well-known as Yo-Yo Ma, Lang Lang or Joshua Bell, his celebrity will have had its roots in a fairly standard, if impressive, achievement: He won a prestigious competition, the BBC Young Musician of the Year, in 2016.

But that victory set the stage for a once-in-a-lifetime launch. After appearing at a charity event attended by Prince Harry, he was selected to play at Harry’s 2018 wedding to Meghan Markle. It was watched on television by an audience of nearly 2 billion — including many young people of color who have swiftly taken Mr. Kanneh-Mason as a model.