MARIATU KANNEH-MASON

‘Mariatu is sixteen years old and attends Trinity Catholic School in Nottingham. She studies cello with Ben Davies, and piano with Fiona Harris at Junior Royal Academy of Music. She has Grade 8 distinction on the cello and on piano and holds a piano diploma distinction (ARSM).

She has performed with the Kanneh-Masons in a series of concerts around the UK, Europe, Australia, USA, Canada and in Antigua and Barbuda. With the Kanneh-Masons, Mariatu performed at The Royal Albert Hall for the 2021 BBC Proms, and with her siblings for The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall in March 2017, in a Kanneh-Mason concert at St Johns Smith Square in 2018 and at Cheltenham Literary Festival 2020. She recently joined her family at the Barbican to perform a concert including Carnival of the Animals with Michael Morpurgo. In June 2026 she stepped in for her brother Sheku as part of a family ensemble concert at London’s Wigmore Hall after which Neil Fisher of The Times said ‘her rich timbre sparked shivers‘  and that ‘She has the forceful tone of a soloist with personality.’

Mariatu has appeared on several television and radio programmes with her siblings, including BBC World Service, Al Jazeera TV, Channel 4, BBC 1 The One Show and the BBC4 documentary, Young, Gifted and Classical. She has featured, with the Kanneh-Masons, in a documentary for Sunday Morning CBS Television (USA), Royal Variety Performance (ITV), Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1), The BBC Proms (BBC2 and BBC4), and the Imagine documentary for BBC1, This House is Full of Music. She has acted as co-presenter as part of The Kanneh-Mason Family Takeover series on Classic fm. She has also recorded for the Decca Classics album, Carnival and on the latest family album, River of Music. 

Mariatu plays a fine French cello along with a bow, both kindly on loan from Beares International Violin Society.

Photo: Reuben Penny