New Artist of the Month: Sheku Kanneh-Mason

LONDON--If the tale of the Kanneh-Mason family was in a story book, everyone would be complaining that it was just too far-fetched. Along come seven children. The first takes piano lessons. Her two younger brothers are inspired to take up violin and cello. Then four more girls arrive, competing for practice time on the piano, two of them also playing violin, two of them cello.

Not many families can field an entire chamber orchestra. And these guys don’t just dabble—they’re really good. As if to prove it, late last year 17-year-old Sheku Kanneh-Mason took time off from his schoolwork to win top prize at the televised BBC Young Musician of the Year competition. The story of the teenage cellist and his extraordinary family was the subject of a BBC TV documentary, Young, Gifted and Classical.

At an age when most teenagers are worrying about not flunking school exams, Kanneh-Mason has not just a major win under his belt but a Decca record contract in the bargain.

He also has a passion for the music of Bob Marley, which might go some way towards explaining how he maintains a remarkably laidback approach as he storms the classical music world. At the BBC finals he threw off a fizzing Shostakovich One apparently without breaking sweat. “I don’t tend to get very nervous before I go on to perform,” he says. “Nerves aren’t always a bad thing. I just don’t tend to get them.”

Despite his calm take on life, he is suitably content on how it is working out. “There’s lots going on that I would never have imagined or hoped for before the competition. It’s been great.”

Kanneh-Mason is heavily involved with music at his state school in Nottingham in the English Midlands, and fielded quite a team of supporters when he took part in the BBC competition. “They were so excited and a lot of my teachers came to the finals – the head teacher, the head of music, the music teachers, all came down to the finals at the Barbican.”

Nottingham to London is a round trip of 250 miles, and one that Kanneh-Mason makes every Saturday to attend the Junior Academy at the Royal Academy of Music.

He starts his Decca contract with the Shostakovich that saw him take the big prize, recording it during 2017. Beyond that is as yet unplanned, but “I’d love to be able to record the Elgar concerto and Haydn.” Another link with the BBC competition is the 400-year-old Amati cello that he was loaned for the final. Now the dealer who provided the instrument, Florian Leonhard, has brokered a deal to let him use it on permanent loan, thanks to the help of an anonymous sponsor based in London.

“I’m really so grateful and honored to be able to play on an instrument like that, and long term,” he said in our interview last month. “Over the last three or four days I’ve just been getting used to it again and playing it all the time. I can create any sound I want to make much more easlily on this instrument; it helps you in that way and has amazing projection and range of colors. It’s wonderful.”

Unlike many a young wunderkind, Sheku Kanneh-Mason is not prone to single-minded obsession when it comes to music. “I like lots of sports," he says. “I play football and table tennis. I think it’s important to have interests outside of music, especially while I’m still young, not to completely direct myself towards the cello. Obviously I have to make sacrifices, and cello is the most important thing, but when I have time to do other things I really do enjoy doing them.”

But time is pressing, especially in his last year at school, preparing for final exams (music, unsurprisingly, plus math andpPhysics). At the same time, offers are flooding in – everyone wants him on their concert platform. How does he choose what to accept? “It’s important that I’m still studying at school and still studying at the Junior Academy and still learning lots of repertoire. I am doing quite a lot of concerts but I’m looking for things that will help me develop as a musician. I try to keep a balance between being able to study and learn new repertoire and saying yes to the great opportunities.”

Another thing that sets  Kanneh-Mason apart from the usual child prodigy story is that the music is a genuine passion, not the result of pressure from ambitious parents. The story goes that neither is a musician, though Dad Stewart says they both played piano to Grade 8 level when at school. It seems unlikely that either of them will be taking it up again just yet. “We’re probably too busy now really, driving them all around and going to their concerts and things. Maybe when there’s a bit more time I’ll pick up the piano again.”

He would have to work round a fiendishly complicated practice regime, in a family home that houses four pianos, three cellos, a viola, and four violins. “It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster year but it’s going really well,” says Dad with nice understatement.

Meanwhile Sheku finds himself a role model for young musicians everywhere. And at a time when school music is perennially under threat in the UK school curriculum, he is happy to wave the flag. “I’ve really always enjoyed music. I think if young people are always exposed to classical music and see other young cellists and violinists and things like that, they will see that as something really exciting. It’s so varied and a wonderful thing to be involved in.”

As to the future, Sheku Kanneh-Mason has hardly had time to think about it. “I just really enjoy performing and I want to do that as much as I can and discover as much new repertoire as possible."  Time is certainly on his side.