Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason performs at the world’s greatest concert halls and with the world’s foremost orchestras. He graduated from London’s Royal Academy of Music, won the BBC Young Musician Award, is a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music, and, since his debut in 2017, has performed every summer at the BBC Proms, including as soloist at the 2023 Last Night of the Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop. In 2018, Kanneh-Mason ascended to pop-culture stardom, when he played at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex—Harry and Megan to most of us—racking up some two billion viewers. A 26-year-old with eclectic tastes, he’s played Bach’s solo suites, demanding central repertoire, concerti for cello and orchestra, and Bob Marley’s reggae.
How in-demand is he? Highlights of his 2024-25 season include the Konzerthaus Berlin as artist in residence, Lucerne Festival 2024 as artiste étoile, the Czech Philharmonic in Prague and on tour, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra with Paavo Järvi, WDR Symphony Cologne with Cristian Măcelaru, Orchestre National de Lyon with Leonard Slatkin, Camerata Salzburg on tour, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra with Manfred Honeck, New World Symphony with Stéphane Denève, and City of Birmingham Symphony with Kazuki Yamada. On June 6 and 7, Kanneh-Mason performs Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Music and Artistic Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
In The Power of Music, Kanneh-Mason discusses his rise to the upper echelons of the classical music world as a person of color, from a public school in Nottingham. A supportive, musically gifted family—he’s one of seven talented siblings—was key. Kanneh-Mason faced barriers in an industry that has a stubborn history of exclusion to musicians of color: for one example, he was the first Black artist ever to win the BBC’s Young Musician Award. Throughout, his passion for the cello and classical music shines through, and today he plays in major concert halls and in the less privileged communities that surround them.
In The Power of Music Kanneh-Mason also reflects on the state of the art, the composers he loves, his vision of classical music for today and for the future, and much more. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 5, “Relevance and Power.” The Power of Music by Sheku Kanneh-Mason is published by Viking, priced £16.99. Learn more at https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/448110/the-power-of-music-by-kanneh-mason-sheku/9780241561324. Reprinted with permission.
What is the place—the relevance—of the music industry, and of the musician in our world? Should music be for everyone, and available to all people to consume and enjoy? What is the place of music in our national culture, in the community, and in the entertainment industry? And in any case, what do we mean by our “national culture,” and what is our “community”?
Classical music is often pushed into a niche heavy with these overloaded meanings. It is lauded or accused as the representation of an elite and resolutely high culture that speaks its own, rarefied language, sitting like a fixed jewel in the rush and change of popular culture. I say lauded and accused because both its defenders and its detractors often assume the same accepted language to praise or defame it, by talking about high culture and low culture and who the imagined consumers of these cultures are. But what is high or low culture?
The idea of classical music as part of elite culture depends on particular views of its content and history. It’s often seen as a historical artefact, groaning under the weight of its own illustrious heritage, to be approached with either reverence or fear. Its language is frequently seen to be elevated and difficult. This leads to arguments that classical music is inherently difficult and historically exclusive, making the discussion of its relevance now a keen issue for decisions about education and provision.
Photo by Mahaneela.
But actually, classical music is both historical and modern, and many of its composers are very much still living. There are many traditions and genres within classical music, and room for differing tastes, different specialities and competing, vibrant paths for evolution and change. The relevance of classical music in particular, or all other types of music in general, depends on this energetic interplay between history and the present. We learn so much from the traditions and music of the past, and understand so much about the enduring power and beauty of music in the present. As with other musical styles—rap and hip-hop, for example—we are constantly paying tribute to the past. We build our sense of ourselves through this realization that we are not the first, or the best, but part of something bigger—something that will always need to be contextualized, reappraised, rediscovered and reinvented.
There are many traditions and genres within classical music, and room for differing tastes, different specialities and competing, vibrant paths for evolution and change.
Education policy and funding decisions often seem caught in a circular logic, creating a situation that is then decreed as inevitable. Making music (as a subject of study, or a practical pursuit) accessible only to the privileged inevitably makes it less relevant to most people – merely because it’s out of reach. Relevance, then, is a political argument.
I’m also interested in the anxiety that keeps surfacing in these discussions about relevance that classical music is a Western art form, as though this disqualifies it from wider provision. Its emergence from history as a Western art form does not rule out its relevance to those whose heritage, nationality or culture is non-Western. The astonishing strength and flowering of classical music in East Asia, particularly China and South Korea, is testament to this. The consumers and champions of classical music are not exclusively in Western countries, and neither are the producers and performers. The assumption that “Western” excludes those in the UK whose origin, parentage or heritage is rooted in Britain’s former colonial empire or beyond is based on problematic conclusions. Those of us with family ties in the diaspora of formerly colonized people, for example, are very much an integral part of Western culture. For centuries, people whose origins are non-Western have defined and continue to define the “West.” And there are many other music genres that have emerged as Western art forms without the same weight of “irrelevance” or non-inclusivity: rap, R&B, jazz, to name a few.
Making music accessible only to the privileged inevitably makes it less relevant to most people. Relevance, then, is a political argument.
There are many arguments and historical revisions which highlight the roots of rock and roll, country, blues and many other musical forms that were always infused, inaugurated, and defined by Black artists before being appropriated as mainstream music. And by mainstream, by Western, by European, by British, what do we really mean? I worry that many things are said covertly and accepted without being challenged. By Western, do we really mean white? In which case, it’s important to look hard at our definitions of Western, European and British, and interrogate what we mean and who is included. Classical music is not immune to these questions, and arguments about relevance are shot through with stories and ideas that thrive on invisibility, denial and ignorance. So perhaps one task of anyone trying to champion classical music is to explore Western history itself and the place of music in the national tales we tell. And, if classical music has been co-opted by a restrictive view of our history, how do we blow that open and how much does it impact on music today?
This fall, Sheku Kanneh-Mason and his pianist sister, Isata, make their duo recital debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall, with appearances in Bordeaux, Rome, Cincinnati, Toronto, Philadelphia, Dublin, Munich, Berlin, Antwerp, Haarlem, the Rheingau Festival, and at London’s Wigmore Hall.
I am continually engaged with issues around classical music particularly, but classical is not a separate and wholly distinct arena in the music world. Classical music is everywhere: in film and television scores, advertisements, within other styles of music, and just as popular, recognized tunes. Its boundaries are contested, politicized, and subject to an intense context of prejudice, obfuscation and fear – from without and within. My intention is to break down these perceived boundaries and to widen engagement in classical music among those who now struggle with a feeling of exclusion.
If classical music has been co-opted by a restrictive view of our history, how do we blow that open and how much does it impact on music today?
There is a range of possible approaches to this. Should we revolutionize the spaces where classical music is traditionally played, or regularly remove it to new spaces? Or does the music itself need to change? It could be a question of information, knowledge and opportunity rather than venue and tradition. We may need, in some cases, to adapt the culture of classical music. But in other cases, we could just throw open the doors and welcome all people into that pre-existing culture. Many changes will arise from that, including diversifying the audiences and making them represent a wider demographic—a greater mix of young and older people, different classes and ethnicities perhaps. We need to confront the question of relevance by asking who we want to be the consumers and champions of this music.
