ISATA KANNEH-MASON

Pianist Isata offers eclectic and interesting recital programmes with repertoire encompassing Haydn and Mozart, Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, Chopin and Brahms to Gershwin and beyond. In concerto, she is equally at home in Felix Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann as in Prokofiev and Dohnányi.

Isata is in high demand from concert halls and orchestras worldwide. Following her phenomenally successful concerto debut at the BBC Proms in 2023, she was invited to open the festival in July 2024 with the BBC Symphony and conductor Elim Chan, a performance which resulted in stellar reviews in the mainstream press. Isata appears as concerto soloist with the European Union Youth Orchestra and Iván Fischer in summer 2024 performing Dohnányi’s Variations on a Nursery Tune at Carnegie Hall, New York, the Grafenegg Festival, and Bolzano Festival Bozen.

Highlights of the 2024/25 season include Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto at the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie’s FREISPIEL festival and at the Ulster Orchestra’s season opening concert; and Prokofiev’s Third Concerto with the Chineke! Orchestra on tour at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, the Berliner Philharmonie, Brussels’s BOZAR and London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. Solo recital appearances include the Lucerne Festival, Piano aux Jacobins Toulouse, the Schumann-Haus Düsseldorf, PHIL Haarlem, and on tour across the USA. In concerto performance, Isata appears with the London, Bergen, Bremen, and Duisburg philharmonics, the North Carolina Symphony, and on tour with the Staatskapelle Weimar, and the Residentie Orkest.

Isata continues her longstanding duo collaboration with her cellist brother, Sheku, with performances in the UK and on tour across Europe, the USA, and Canada. She will also give performances with bass-baritone Gerald Finley in the Czech Republic and Germany.

In 2023/24, Isata gave performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra Ottawa, NCPA Orchestra Beijing, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on tour in the USA and Germany, Cleveland Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, and Stockholm Philharmonic among others. She appeared in solo recital at the Beethoven Bonn and Rheingau festivals, and venues around the globe such as London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall and the Konzerthaus Dortmund.

Isata is a Decca Classics artist and has recorded four solo albums for the label – Romance (2019), Summertime (2021), Childhood Tales (2023), and Mendelssohn (2024). Her latest release presents music from two Mendelssohn siblings, including the glittering First Piano Concerto by Felix and the long-lost ‘Easter Sonata’ by his exceptionally talented but overlooked elder sister Fanny, alongside transcriptions of some of Felix’s most famous music by Rachmaninoff and Liszt.

Isata has received many awards, including the coveted Leonard Bernstein Award from the Schleswig-Holstein Festival and an Opus Klassik award for best young artist. She also enjoys composing and arranging and released two albums of her favourite works for intermediate and advanced piano students through ABRSM Publishing in 2023.