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House of Music is a moving and inspirational account of determination, music and love. It is a story about race, immigration and education. It is the story of a mother and her family. And it is the story of her children, seven phenomenally talented musicians. For the first time, Kadie Kanneh-Mason opens up about what it takes to raise a musical family in a Britain divided by class and race. She looks back to 1963 when her mother, the nineteen-year-old daughter of a Welsh family, defied everyone and sailed off to join her fiancé and his family in Sierra Leone. Through this personal journey and what follows, the book charts the story of immigration, determination and hard work of a remarkable family succeeding when everything seemed stacked against them.
Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason is a former lecturer at Birmingham University and the mother of seven children. Sheku Kanneh-Mason, her third eldest was the first black musician to win BBC Young Musician in 2016 and performed at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Two of his siblings are also former BBC Young Musician category finalists and the eldest, pianist Isata, has also presented for the Proms. Collectively, the Kanneh-Masons have performed at the 2018 BAFTA Ceremony and concert halls across the world and, during the lockdown months, garnered huge audiences for their popular Facebook live performances from their family home in Nottingham. These precious moments of family life and music were beautifully captured in the BBC’s recent Imagine documentary.