ERLANGEN, GERMANY – SHEKU – ORCHESTRAL

PERFORMERS
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cello
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Edward Gardner, conductor

PROGRAMME
Bloch: Schelomo – Hebraic rhapsody for cello & orchestra

VENUE NOTE
“Go out and find your place!” That was the simple upbringing Kadiatu Kanneh and Stuart Mason gave their seven musically gifted children. Upon their arrival in the UK from Sierra Leone and Antigua, they were told: “Stay in your place!” – Black people know what that means…

Sheku Kanneh-Mason, born in Nottingham in 1999, is their third child, and he has found his place. Things have been going well for the likeable young cellist since his performance at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. None other than Sir Simon Rattle, with whom he recorded Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, is his musical friend, and in the 2024/25 season, he was Artist in Residence at the Konzerthaus Berlin, where the highly esteemed Joana Mallwitz currently holds the post of Chief Conductor.

Today he has an impressive repertoire from Dvořák to Shostakovich and, with his magnificent Matteo Goffriller instrument from 1700, he enchants music fans in all the world’s major concert halls, for example in the Wigmore Hall, the Carnegie Hall, the Barbican Hall, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, the Vienna Musikverein, the Tonhalle Zurich, the Auditorio Nacional de Música Madrid, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées as well as at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall and at festivals such as the Lucerne Festival, the Verbier Festival and the Rheingau Music Festival.

Sheku Kanneh-Mason is also active in chamber music, forming the Kanneh-Mason Trio with his sister Isata (piano) and brother Braimah (violin). With his six siblings, he works on new music, primarily by Black composers, and has already performed several world premieres.

Sheku Kanneh-Mason was inducted into the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2020 for his artistic and social commitment; he is an ambassador for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Yes, the young cellist has found his place, and despite this dream career, he has still remained a nice guy, also because his siblings say: “Airs and graces are completely unacceptable!”

Together with Edward Gardner and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, he performs Ernest Bloch’s moving Hebrew Rhapsody “Schelomo.” The opening performance will be Edward Elgar’s rarely performed concert overture “In the South.” After the interval, you can expect a rich Russian soul in Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3.