“Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who counts Bob Marley and Mstislav Rostropovich among his idols, is a young man on the move,” writes Tom Huizenga on Tuesday (2/6) at National Public Radio. “The British cellist, still a teenager, won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Award in 2016; he’s just released his major label debut, featuring his rendition of Bob Marley’s ‘No Woman, No Cry,’ which has been quietly racking up YouTube views and Spotify hits.… Kanneh-Mason … has six siblings, all of whom are musicians. They wowed the audience at Britain’s Got Talent in 2015 with a mashup of classical and popular numbers. Kanneh-Mason’s new album, Inspiration, is also a mix of chestnuts and pop. Along with Marley’s ‘No Woman’ and Saint-Saens’ ‘The Swan,’ there’s an arrangement of Leonard Cohen’s ubiquitous ‘Hallelujah.’ But the centerpiece of the album is his performance of the demanding Cello Concerto No. 1 by Dmitri Shostakovich … Kanneh-Mason began cello lessons at age six and went on to enroll in the junior program at London’s Royal Academy of Music, where he now studies full time in the degree program. He and his siblings have also been active in Chineke!, a British orchestra that provides opportunities to young minority musicians.”
Posted February 7, 2018
